Strength Does not Equate to Safety
by BuriedHeart
Summary: At some point in her life she'd have to see him again. It only made sense, but what didn't was that she didn't want to. She's stronger than before but is that a good thing? Akatsuki-Sasuke and Sakura Adventure Action Romance Comedy "I'm not safe anyomore"
1. Chapter 1  The Search

**(A/N): **Alright, so here is my very first _written_ fanfic- my apologies for not living up to my earlier claim of making a pure SasuSaku one, like I mentioned in my profile- but hey I changed my mind. I still probably will write it- only I want to take fresh inspiration first. So.. FYI -Orochimaru is dead- that's it... I don't want to give too much out, but since this is the intro... its sometime after Sakura _'killed'_ Sasori. Only he ain't so dead- but that comes, well, not in this intro! Hehe, I know, sorry, anywayyy. I'm starting things off pretty heavy, like with the plots and intros and such what.. etc.. Just thought I might give you a heads up :p

Enjoy all ~ please rate and comment, all thoughts appreciated. Suggestions are always welcome as well. Anyways- Rolling Chapter one!

Chapter one ~ The Search ~

His eyes were rippled with annoyance as he narrowed them down to the valued Akatsuki members body. Konan's attempts at restoring him were all but useless, the faint glow emanating from her hands merely sustaining him. "_Damn,"_ he thought. His arms moved from their usual crossed position to anxiously drag one hand through fiery, orange colored hair, the other now supporting his weight on the operating table. Konan knew only the basics of medical ninjutsu; learning what was required as a genin, but little more. Over all this time, there never seemed to be that great of a need for it, until now that is.

"How is he?" he asked uselessly. However emotionless he seemed, Konan saw through it like she would a pane of glass. She sighed, appearing equally depraved of emotion.

"Not good." She spoke in a dead tone. "He should be dead, realistically. However, it seems that the blows missed some sort of vital spot." Konan glanced over to the sealed flesh cylinder. It had taken quite the beating and too much blood had already been lost by the time they'd arrived... She'd been able to stop the bleeding, yes, but wasn't educated enough to know if she'd been in time. After all, the only things she new of medical ninjutsu were the basics most genin were taught. Though looking back at her friend told her the obvious. Which was sadly...unpleasant.

Pein followed her gaze, the lone organ pulsed inside its protective covering weakly. He rubed the bridge of his nose. What in Kami's name was he to do now?

"How long?" he asked impatiently.

Konan looked up to meet Pein's eyes steadily. "No more than three weeks."

_"Damn,"_ they both thought in unison. Pein nodded and straightened himself, preparing to leave the room. Konan had to stay there until he was reasonably stable. Even then, she'd only have no more than an hour to rest up her chakra before having to tend to him again-sometimes less-, else he would be lost. Without another word, Pein turned and walked out the door. The grim cavernous hallway greeted him mockingly and yet he went on un-bothered.

The next set of doors he walked through, he was met with anxious stares. Pein looked at them all. Conveying everything with only his eyes.

"Damn that bitch, yeah," the blonde muttered harshly, crossing his arms. His blue eyes smoldered, burning holes through the floor as he glared at the ground. Pein's eyes came to rest on him, thinking something along the lines of sympathy. It had been his partner and to top it off, he'd been there when it happened. Pein wasn't sure whether to either yell at him for being so careless, or leave him be. Pein could feel the oncomings of an argument, and he didn't feel like cooling it for once. He'd let them have it out, maybe enough to compensate what his reputation refused him to do himself. Afterall, he might have been the most frustrated one there.

"No fucking way, you're serious? Call up freaking Kabuto! Tell him to get his ass down here before I rip his guts out and use him for my next ritual! I'll be damned if-"

"You already are damned, idiot," his green eyed partener interrupted him. "Besides Hidan, even without this excuse, we all know you'd love to use Kabuto next anyway. With good reason, unfourtunately. We can't trust him; he'd betray us the moment he saw any chance to. Remember, aside from his allegiance to Orochimaru, he jacked eighteen hundred yen from my room last time."

"But, Orochimaru's dead, yeah? Does it really ma-"

"Yes," Kakuzu and both sides of a usually silent Zetsu interrupted Deidara as he spoke up.

"You moron, how naive can you be? Kabuto is as much a snake as Orochimaru was," Zetsu's dark half added in.

"Hahahaa, Deidara-sempai has been called childish and stupid! Tobi thinks this is funny!" Tobi laughed and pointed a finger at Deidara, oblivious to the tension that hung over them all.

Deidara twitched. He was so annoyed at this brat. "Speaking of childish and stupid..." Deidara was a little fed up having to deal with the child that was Tobi. He'd rather not waste the energy so instead he shot a dangerous, chilling glare in the orange masked idiot's way. Tobi froze in mid laughter, a nearly inaudible squeak was heard from him then no more. "Tch. Twit," Deidara muttered, satisfied he'd succeeded.

"Enough," Pein commanded. This wasn't going anywhere, and he had things to take care of before he could let them rant their hearts out. All focus turned to him. "Where are Itachi and Kisame?"

"How should I know, yeah?" Deidara spoke out of irritation, not for Pein's question, but for his own situation. Pein knew as much and only glared. Receiving said glare from Pein, Deidara "humphed" and looked away. He knew Pein was just as unhappy as he was about the situation, but still he couldn't help but find some way to vent. "_I'll kill that chick. Even if he does live, she'll pay,"_ he vowed silently to himself.

Receiving shrugs and mutters, Pein sighed heavily. "Fine, then. I'll find them myself. We have a bijuu to seal and without those two, it would be unsafe to drag out such a long process under-handed." He stopped, turning back and fixing his stare to Kakuzu and Hidan. "You _did_ retrieve the bijuu, didn't you?" His voice dropped low, threatening.

"Will you have a little faith in us once in a while? _Jashin_! Stupid, ...unfaithful, ...fucking bastards..." Hidan crossed his arms. "Yes! For your information, we _did _get the damn thing. Fucking hard as hell, and do I get congradulated? Nooo! Talk about being under-appre -"

A kunai flew past Hidan's skull, and his breath caught in his throat. He could feel the few strands of hair that had been sliced off, fall from his head and his arms shot out from their crossed possition in surprise. About to chew out his offender, the glare that reached him halted any words that would have flown out. He shut up promptly, but crossed his arms to show his discontempt.

Pein's glare still settled on Hidan firmly. He wasn't in the mood to hear him complain. No sooner then he'd done so, Kakuzu elbowed him.

"Hidan. Will you shut up?" Kakuzu warned. "Pein-sama, the four tails is being held below." Pein nodded.

"Congradulations, Hidan-sempai!" Tobi beamed and was about ready to glomp him when Hidan's features twisted, showing a terror-striking Jashinist. In the same second, Hidan swiped out his three pronged scythe and held it at a distance, effectively separatng him and Tobi. His face burned with anger and bloodlust.

"Take one more fucking step and I swear I'll hack you to pieces and laugh the entire way through it," he barked quickly. Tobi "eeped" and ran for cover behind Deidara, who twitched slightly and in a mix of looking both annoyed and bored, effortlessly raised his fist from his side and brought it down atop Tobi's head, plowing him into the hard ground. Deidara resumed his silent brooding as if nothing had happened.

Tobi recovered a moment later rubbing his now very sore head whining, "Deidara-sempai is mean..."

Completely resigned, Pein put his face in his hand. "_Well,"_ he reasoned silently to himself. "_There have been worse days." _It wasn't his job to play babysitter, and he often just left them to it, sometimes enjoying their banter. Well, as much as anyone like him could enjoy it.

Konan sighed in utter exaustion, collapsing back into the chair beside the table. She had about ten minutes to rest. She blinked and almost grimaced. "Ughh. Gross," she muttered, referring to both the large organ of flesh situated just across from her and the reality of only having ten minutes to rest up before going at it again for who knows how long.

They needed help. Konan grudgingly admited she couldn't do this big of a job. She never took initiative to train any further in medical ninjutsu after her genin days. His life literally hung on what seemed like a very thin wire, suspended too high for Konan to reach and secure. "Dammit," was all she said. She could not do this. She knew it, Pein knew it. She needed help. Big time. If they wanted to save him they'd have to do some major enlisting. She allowed herself a small chuckle. Kakuzu would not be happy. Medic-nins were expensive, well in this case they would be. The patient was already inches from death.

"Sasori..."

"Pakkun! How close?" Naruto called up to the ninja hound. There was another soft thump as Naruto propelled himself forward once again from a convenient tree branch followed by several others.

"Naruto! How many times do you have to ask!" Sakura scolded Naruto as she came up beside him, fully prepared to smack him. He'd asked the same question about a thousand times already. The last time being ten minutes ago..**. **Though she was anxious too, she would never voice it, however useless that action might be. Everyone knew she was. They were closing in on Sasuke after receiving a lead on his location. The four of them; Sakura, Naruto, Kakashi, and Sai were sent out to find him. Pakkun lead the way and after several hours of non stop running, it was becoming irritating. Sakura was just about to say more to Naruto when Pakkun's voice broke in.

"He's close." Pakkun pounced off another branch and caught a stronger scent. "_Very close,"_ he thought to himself.

Sakura and Naruto both stopped to gape at Pakkun for a moment, momentarily fazed, however still flying through the thick brush. It was all like second nature to them, simple and automatic. They had no worries of being distracted enough to falter or trip over something, ever. Well, maybe Naruto did. It wasn't a second later that Naruto did stumble, Sakura quickly steadied him absently, but none of their usual smart alick quips followed. They were high with the anticipation of finally seeing Sasuke again.

"Finally! That bastards coming back if I have to knock him out and drag him home!" Naruto growled out. "Just _wait_ till I see him..."

Sakura could only glance worryingly at him. She knew he wanted to get Sasuke back and for the longest time she wanted the same, but now... she wasn't so sure. She felt horrible thinking back and remembering that most of this was because of Naruto's promise to her and the fact that she had long since given up on it made her feel a little bit guilty. Now, she chased Sasuke for Naruto. He missed him, probably more than she did. She cared of course, but she disliked Sasuke too much now to even want to see him. How could he have just left...? It wasn't like he cared about her -about either of them. So why in Kami's name should she? Then again...

She felt so conflicted and delving down into what she thought she might do when she saw him. She could only see herself assisting a great deal in the "knocking out" part of the retrieval. _"Jerk,"_ she thought angrily.

_**"You think he might have changed? Even just a little bit..?" **_Her inner's voice asked hopefully.

_"Don't care. I've been saving up an awful lot of chakra for this. "Weak" my foot. He's gonna pay."_

_**"I think you're overreacting..."**_

_"And I think you're _underreacting._ It's a stalemate. Now, shut it."_ Sakura could feel her inner sigh heavily in frustration and defeat.

"Everyone, mask your chakras now," Kakashi ordered. "We'll need the surprise to gain an advantage of some kind." He'd been pretty quiet during the trip, but then again, all of them had been.

"This may just be easier than planned Kakashi. He's already distracted. He's fighting with someone." Another jumble of scents hit Pakkun after his statement. They'd run into a group of about four other ninja and it was too late to go around. "Shit. Sorry guys..." He left the apology open for them to figure out and they did only a few seconds later. They leaped through the edge of the forest, finally reaching the open air, only to have landed smack in the center of more enemy ninja.

"What the...?" Naruto murmured as they all came to a stop.

"Kakashi Hatake..." a deepish voice exclaimed slowly. He had bluish hair and a lighter hue of the same shade for skin. He was sporting a black cloak...with red clouds.

"Akatsuki!" Sakura growled out through her teeth. Her last encounter with one had been quite the stretch; she wasn't looking forward to another battle with them any time soon, but what could you do?

The moment Kisame had taken his eyes off Suigetsu, the younger ninja from the mist attacked him. And so their fight ensued. Suigetsu had taken the distraction eagerly and now was dead set on gaining the Samehade; Kisame's sword.

"Go!" Kakashi yelled to the rest of the squad. He'd make sure they could pass safely and as Sakura, Sai, and Naruto all nodded to continue towards Sasuke. Kakashi was bombarded with a raging ninja with orange hair. The curse mark quickly taking over the guys entire body. "Pakkun, go with them!"

Sakura lead them in front, speeding forward swiftly, Naruto and Sai close behind. The pinkette suddenly sensed a speck of chakra heading their way and glanced back to see a red haired girl coming up behind Sai and Pakkun. "Sai! Watch out!" The high pitched clang of kunai was then heard as the enemy kunoichi clashed against Sai.

"Keep going! Pakkun will stay with me!" Sai called to them. They were already speeding away, this time, Naruto in the lead, grinding his teeth. The two of them leaped past above the rocks in silence. Any second they would be upon them.

Itachi was in the middle of deflecting a barage of kunai. To his surprise they were a little more acurate than expected. "Not bad. Sasuke."

Sasuke only deepened his glare as he noticed that none of them were making contact. He had a clone hiding some place to use at just the right moment and another lying in wait because he knew that Itachi also probably had a few clones. Sasuke was confident in that he was about ten steps ahead of him and lashed out his Chidori along the thin, almost non-visible ninja wire he'd planted earlier. The lightning chakra zipped its way to it's opponent. Sadly, it only grazed the bottom of Itachi's Akatsuki cloak. He'd leaped above it.

_"Perfect,"_ Sasuke thought, and let out a massive fire ball into the air to engulf his brother. Not a seconds hesitation. He was out to kill.

Itachi let out an inaudible grunt of slight irritation and in a flash completed the handsigns to shoot back his own Fire Ball Justu to counter. Suddenly, he felt an irritating vibration leak into the fore-front of his mind, attempting to steal his concentration.

_"Pein-sama. I'm a little preoccupied.'"_

_"Where are you, Itachi?"_

Itachi sighed. He had say he was "preoccupied", hadn't he?

_"I'm in the middle of evading my younger brother. This is not exactly the most convenient of times, Pein-sama."_

_"Come back to the base. There are much more improtant matters to discuss than sparring with your kid brother." _Pein obviously did not realise that his request wouldn't be so easy to carry out. Even if it was an order, it changed nothing.

_"Hai, Pein-sama. I will leave as soon as I am able." _He left it at that. Itachi felt no need to explain further.

_"Hurry up then. I'm in a bad mood..."_

And then the presence left Itachi alone, just not in time for him to dodge a kunai that planted itself in his shoulder. The smell of sulpher and smoke reached his nose and he quickly removed it before throwing it back at Sasuke. The paper bomb attached to it exploded half way there. Itachi's expression retained it's constant appearance: emotionless and nonchalent, only, his eyes narrowed. Pein's interruption had nearly cost him dearly.

Speaking of distractions... Itachi sensed a couple of chakras just a yard or so away. He allowed himself a glance, his sharp crimson stare sliding to find a sight that made the corner of his mouth twich up unnoticeably into a sort of smirk. Well, well...how convenient. His eyes snapped back to face the large cloud of smoke the papper bomb had left behind. The smoke was being disturbed in a way that gave hints to his brother's movement. A second later, Sasuke lunged through and clashed his Kusanagi against Itachi's awaiting fore-arm. The high-pitched tang informed Sasuke that his brother was wearing an arm guard.

_"Damn him!"_

Itachi grabbed Sasuke's wrist to arrest any further movement with his sword and threw him down from the air. The older Uchiha took this moment to fade away. He wouldn't have a better chance to do so and testing Pein's patience wasn't exactly smart. "You're too slow, Sasuke. And you waste my time," he drawled, completely emotionless though there was a hint of mocking in it, which fueled Sasuke's anger to no end.

"Coward! Come back and face me!" Sasuke got up from the ground and stared up at the withering image that was his brother.

"Some other time, little brother." This time, Itachi nearly smirked and an almost inaudible chuckle sounded low in his throat. "You...have fun." And then he was gone, calling to Kisame to follow. He felt him answer and would meet up with him momentarily.

_"Pein-sama. I'm on my way."_

_"I expected to be waiting longer than that Itachi. Did you finish him? What happened...?" _The slow amused drawl that belonged to the Akatsuki leader was even decipherable over the mind link. Itachi considered his answer calculatingly.

_"No. We were interrupted..." _

_"Oh? By whom?"_

_"His former teammates."_

END OF CHAPTER ONE! XD Man I had way too much fun writting that, hehe. Oh god I can't wait to finish! So please tell me whatcha think, its good to lemme know how I'm doing, that way I can edit and stuff like that. Flame me it you want, they don't bother me. Remember, there are nice ways to flame people.. my brain turns off when someones bantering/ yelling, anyway, I'm sure most of you get it- Lastly requests are cool and welcome, too. Sayonara!

Oh and, Kusanagi is the name of Sasuke's sword. It's not a katana(the style), but rather a Chokuto- this is because the blade is absolutely straight, and does not curve like the Katana does. ~How's that for a Japanese weaponry lesson! And no I am not an expert.. lol

I hope to update by Monday... P.s. XD


	2. Chapter 2  Reconnaissance

**(A/N):**Chapter two! I just want to say thanks to everyone for adding the story and etc.. and also for the review from **Jinchurikigrl**. I know I didn't leave that big of a time slot in between chapters to allow time for a few others, but I just really felt like writting another one today ^^ So I hunkered down with a bowl of spicy kimchi soup and did exactly that. Hahaa, okay so I like ramen too, but really- not many people _don't_. At least not that I know, meh anyways, I'm off track- bad! Once again thanks to all and before you kick my butt for taking too long, I'm gonna just kick it in gear. Time to get my fingers moving.

**DISCLAIMER:~ **As much as I'd love the credit, I, unfourtunately, DO NOT own Naruto.

**Recap- **

_"Pein-sama. I'm on my way"_

_"I expected to be waiting longer than that Itachi. Did you really finish him that quickly? What happened..?" _

Itachi considered. His face fell into a smug expression._ "No. We were interrupted.."_

_"Oh? By whom?"_

_"His former teammates."_

Chapter 2 ~Recon~

**Sasuke's POV: **

I gritted my teeth, so much so that I thought they would crack. If they did I wouldn't be surprised. How _could _he? Today was the day I finally got revenge for my clan. The day I finally _killed _him. And he had the nerve to just _run off?_ How dare he! How _dare _he!

My grip on the Kusanagi tightened, the thin fabric from my gloves thrashing against the handle, creating a harsh friction and tense sound. All I could do was run over his last words . Over and over... _"...Have fun.." _ Oh, but I was already having so much... I sighed, in both an attempt the calm myself and figure out what he'd meant, which was obviously something unrelated to him. I let out a sharp breath through my nose, no way in hell was I calming down anytime soon. There was no telling when I'd have another chance to destroy him.

"_Itachi_..." I growled his name through my teeth, so low frighteningly low, like it was natural.

Suddenly I became aware of approaching chakras, familiar, but they didn't belong to Team Hawk. Not a second later, a voice shouted angrily, "Teme!"

_"You...Have fun..."_

...Oh.

It dawned on me. Slowly, my head cocked over my shoulder to land my ever present glare on Itachi's description of 'Fun'. Was this some sort of sick joke? It must be. Were they...? My thoughts trailled off for a moment. No, they weren't clones, or genjutsu. Their chakras were real, I could see them, feel them.

Hell no.

I pivoted on my right heel to face them both fully. My expression was blank as paper, if you didn't count the twitch hinting at my frustration. They just didn't know when to give up, did they? I kept my posture loose, though coiled, I probably appeared unfazed. I really didn't care to waste my time keeping too much of a guard up around them. They weren't worth the effort. Though I found myself muttering my annoyance.

"You people need to learn how to differentiate between useless recon's and not."

"Shut up! How can you be so _smug!_ Drop the damn act and lets _go_. I don't feel like slamming you into an early retirement just yet," Naruto burst out. I swear I could already see the tell tale signs of one of his little speeches beginning to form. The Dobe always did have something like a Jesus complex. I swear, if I have to stand here and listen to this crap, I'll kill them both right now. Where the hell is Hawk?

I sighed and put a hand to my face in a laguid, lazy movement. Moving it up and through my hair, resisting the urge to laugh outright at his threat. _"Now, how do I avoid this... I wasted too much chakra on Itachi. Fighting is too risky. Which brings me back to my earlier question; where was Team Hawk?" _Glancing back at my two ex-teammates through narrowed slits I reasoned that there must have been more of them, and reaching out further to feel for any surrounding chakra, the theory was confirmed. So, Kakashi was with them, too.

_Joy_, the whole pack is here.

"Naruto... Sakura," I drawled, suddenly very bored. This seamed to piss of the Dobe, but Sakura could have passed in indifference. Besides what I'd come to know as annoyance -through experience- edging on her aura. Was she too scared to react? "Tch," I scoffed under my breath with narrowed black eyes. Pathetic.

"Teme?" Naruto prodded uncertainly. He took a protective step to partially place himself infront of Sakura. And I smirked. My gaze snapped back to Naruto, my Sharingan had been deactivated for awhile now, and I felt no need to change that. It only felt a little strange to see them again with dark eyes rather than the ghostly stare that was my Sharingan. It had been months since last I'd seen them at the snake's hideout, and then it had been all out. But, I had seen what they could do back then, they weren't any match for me. I bet I could even take them now if I wanted... regardless of my chakra.

"You...waste your time, ne? Neither of you have changed, and I will not go back to Konoha. You two, can't possibly change any of that. It's always been the same. You are all _beneath_ me. You, and Konoha. And..." I lowered my head for a moment, not sure if they knew yet already, but... "I won't return to a place that ordered the masacre of my clan." He let that sink in, proud that he'd stumped them. Only, the looks on their faces... weren't what he was expecting. At all.

"Idiot." This was Sakura's voice, agitated and fed up at the same time as somehow completely calm. "We know that. The one who ordered it has been put under high security lockdown. Not a soul enters without the hokage being present. Even then I'm sure you realise how hard _that _might even be," Sakura stated almost boredly, arms crossed and looking away somewhere off to the side. It was the first thing she'd said so far. Hn, so she can talk.

"Teme! You calling me _weak?_" Naruto, of course, ignored the little enlightenment segment and skipped right to the core of what I'd said. His face twisted into a narrow snarl.

"You really are an idiot," I muttered exasperated, then turned mocking. "Yes, Naruto. I called you and Sakura pathetic, little-" Sasuke's eyes widened a fraction, as his sentece was cut off by a loud cry.

**Sakura's POV:**

_Call me weak, will you? I don't freaking think so. Cha! _I flew past Naruto on chakra propelled feet, swiftly dashing over the rocky terrain and heading straight for a good punch in the face.

"Shannaro!" I clenched my teeth. He'd gone too far. That bastard was so infuriatingly blind it drove me mad! Couldn't he see that Naruto cared about him? That we both did? Or was he just blowing us off like some child would a toy he'd grown tired of playing with? "You Bastard!" Just then a shadow clone of his dashed infront of my line of attack, getting in the way, rather than waste the blow on him, I smirked and danced backwards a quarter step and smashed into the earth below me.

There was a loud satisfying crack beneath me and it played domino's as I'd wanted towards Sasuke. Eliminating the clone instantly with the mere impacting shudder through the ground. The earth crumbled beneath us and simultaniously, we leaped into the air. For a moment, time froze. Everything slowed down to minimal and I noticed every detail. Adrenaline. The air passing across our faces rocked our hair back and forth. Slowly, glimpses of our even placed glares were seen by the other. Mine; narrow, even and hard. Sasuke's just the same, only twinged with a surprise he could never understand. I'd changed alright. And he would learn the hard way.

My eyes sparkled with minor victory, however shortly lived. In the same second we threw kunai at each other. Only at the whim of a memory, I'd laced mine with a surprise. Our kunai deflected off each other, the tang eerily contrasted next to the silence around us. The moment they clashed my surprise took effect and beneath the kunai's collision, in the shodow of the other, I'd hidden another kunai. I felt the corner of my mouth pull up,

_**Cha! You tell him Sakura! Who's laughing now? Uchiha jerk!**_ Inner rambled on inside my brain and I tuned her out, as much as I agreed with her, this moment was just too priceless to miss.

The shadow kunai jutsu zipped clean through the air, and skinned his cheek as he attempted to avoid the worst of the blow. Blood pushed itself through pale skin, forming a thin line of red, a single drop edged down towards his jaw.

His eyes were wide and with a scary calm I breathed out: "I'm sorry, Sasuke, what were you saying?" I was a good 20 feet from him now, and Naruto came up to flank my side. I didn't let Sasuke have any chance at answering,

"Naruto. This starts now. Talking won't sway him. Looks like you'll get to drag him back like you wanted." Naruto only looked at me a little shocked. He obviously hadn't seen any indication to my outburst beforehand. After all, I'd beat him to it. Then he nodded with a bright yet sneaky smile plastered on his face. He cracked his knuckles turning his attention back to Sasuke who'd wiped the blood from his cheek, only to stain the sleeve of his white Oto shirt.

"Ne, Sasuke-teme? What_ were_ you going to say. I'm curious..."

**(NORMAL POV:)**

Damn, Sasuke thought bitterly. How in the world did she do that? "You know damn well what I was saying! Even you can't be that stupid," He finished in a mumble. He wasn't sure whether to fight them or not now. His chakra was low, yes, but he had two other clones lying in wait. If he timed it right and caught them off guard, that would be that. But he'd already seen how easy it was for Sakura to destroy them without having to necessarily be within a certain distance. Long range, short range, -whatever. If she sensed it coming, that plan was over. And Sasuke didn't like the idea of testing his chakra limit by masking his clone's chakra.

Sakura was contemplating on which way to go about it first, she figured she'd wait until Naruto did something. She thought it was always easier to branch off her own movements from his, they worked very well together. She supposed it was because since Sasuke was never around, they'd gotten to train a lot together a lot more. They weren't just part of a team, they were really like family. In every sense of the word excluding the blood relativity. They spent almost every waking moment together, most of which Sakura was completely perturbed by him. But, hey, he was Naruto. When he had nowhere to go, she was there for him. He'd stay at her place countless times. Either to just hang out or practice jutsu and stuff. They knew each inside out. Which is why the moment Naruto cloned himself for what she guessed was rassengan, she did the same, making two clones and backing him up.

They charged forward and were met with two of Sasuke's clones, Sakura's had lost out but managed to take them out along with themselves. When she got close enough to Sasuke she jumped up high, opening the way for Naruto to take the plunge. In the air Sakura turned to gaze down and watch. And what she saw, left her dumbstruck.

"Water Style: Ripping Torent!" A white haired teen shouted loudly as a huge mass of water collected at his blade then struck out to send Naruto flying back, completely drenched. Naruto staggerd, attempting to rise. His arms shook and failed him as he glared up to meet the cocky gaze infront of him. Naruto's wind element Rassengan had managed to blow and part most of the water jutsu. Had he been prepared against it, he'd be fine maybe even won out. But he was holding back, wanting to only incapacitate Sasuke, not kill him. The water jutsu's power level won out and stunned him for a moment.

Sakura landed lithely several meters behind Sasuke and the Water nin. The two enemies now separated her and Naruto, she bit her lip trying to concentrate. The new enemy, she assessed, was just water style. She could read it in his chakra. He stood infront of Sasuke, guarding him...from the _front_. But what were the chances that she'd gone unnoticed? Slim to none.

"Suigetsu," Sasuke began. "Your timing needs work." Just then he spared a glance over his shoulder to bore his stare into Sakura, halting any advance she might have thought to try.

"Sorry, Sasuke. I came right when Kisame-Sempai took off. Tch, woulda nailed him too, cowardly bastard."

"Ha! Excuse me? You were getting you ass handed to you, idiot. If he hadn't run off that would have been then end of you... " Karin's expression turned sneaky as she appeared out from the forest and into the clearing. She waltzed up to her teammates, "Too bad, cause then I would have had Sasuke-kun all to myself!" and squealed as she clung to Sasuke's side, appearing to almost be literally hanging off him. "Well except for Juugo, by the way, where is he?"

"Fighting, Kakashi," Sasuke said as he pealed her off of him.

"Oh, you mean that damned 'copy-nin'?" Karin prodded just for the sake of speaking with him. She knew full well who Kakashi was.

"Hn."

"Hey! Four-eyes, get your eyes checked _again_. I was all over Kisame-Sempai, I-"

"Save it, in another few minutes you would have _literally _been _all over_ him. In pieces. The guy could hack you in two blindfolded."

"Why you!" Suigetsu rounded on Karin, and Sakura saw her chance. While Sasuke silenced them both she leaped high over them all landing at Naruto's side. He was half sitting up, so before he could waste their time she slung his arm over her shoulder quickly. This didn't go completely unnoticed, Sasuke stared back dangerously and flung a trio of kunai at them. Thinking fast Sakura jumped up, still holding Naruto, and missed the first two. Flipping backwards, she dodged the third and landed in a crouch much farther away than she had just been a second ago.

Sakura glared back at him. They were outnumbered, and she couldn't trust Naruto not to do something idiotic to get back at this Suigetsu person. She waited until someone came to back them up. Placing her other hand on one of Naruto's wounds to heal him in the mean time, while still keeping a watchful eye on Sasuke and his team. A thought occured to her then that Sai had been up against Karin, and now Karin was here... Sakura tensed even further. _"No way."_

"Where is Sai!" She called over to the three. For a moment there wasn't any answer, until Karin's expression showed a bit of understanding.

"Oh, that kid? Yeah, he bailed to help the copy-nin against Juugo. And when I saw Suigetsu running back to help Sasuke-kun" she cooned his name, "I couldn't let him have the glory of saving him all by himself."

Sakura resisted the urge to point out that he _had_ actually saved Sasuke by himself. She was beginning to irritate her. To distract herself, she thought for a moment on how Sai and Kakashi would fair against the missing-nin named Juugo. If Sai had felt the need to abandon his fight to help Kakashi, then he must be trouble.

Naruto was perfectly capable of moving now, but Sakura kept her hold on him anyway, "Naruto, it's three against two, and Kakashi and Sai might be in trouble-" He cut her off,

"So what? We can take 'em! Besides Kakashi has Sai and Pakkun. And Captain Yamato is supposed to be here soon, right? They'll be fine! And all I have to do is make up the difference with a bunch of shadow clones..." Naruto wriggled from Sakura's grip and made the sign. Around seven clones appeared to back the two of them up. Sakura sighed nervously. He had a point, and this could be the last chance they ever got in awhile to bring back Sasuke.

Finally considering the fight, Sakura realized something very important. Sasuke's chakra levels were on low. He'd wasted too much energy on Itachi already. Piece of cake.

"Piece of cake," an unfamiliar voice cheered kindly as he approached us from the side. Had she spoken aloud? No... Then who..? She glanced to the side to see an orange haired boy, sporting a receding curse mark. A bit like Sasuke's. Juugo, Sakura thought. The bulky teen walked over to stand at Sasuke's side, then the thought hit her.

"Naruto, no. We have to help Kakashi and Sai. I have a bad feeling."

"Aa," was all he said. He knew full well what the arrival the third member of their ex-teammate's squad meant. He'd dealt with them, and now Sakura had to get to them as soon as possible before it was too late.

"It's time we back off. At least for now, Naruto," she said to console him. She might not be as anxious for Sasuke to come back, but he was. Just walking away wouldn't sit well with him, but he wouldn't leave Kakashi and Sai and Pakkun-if Pakkun were still there- alone and most likely injured.

They stood, still facing team hawk. Neither side said a word, leaving only glares to act as the source of communication. Then, slowly, both Sakura and Naruto made the hand sign to transport away and closer to their former sensei. Naruto, gone in a puff of white smoke, while Sakura faded away inside a curtain of wind carried sakura blossoms. Her eyes lingered angrily on Sasuke. Now, she was making a promise to Naruto. She would get him back, for his sake. Not hers.

Once in the cover of the forest they bolted to where their teams chakra signatures were, both very weak.

"Damn," They both said in together. Each for different reasons, however. Sakura because she could sense how bad off Sai and Kakashi were, Naruto because he'd had to abandon Sasuke, he couldn't sense chakra as well as she could.

In the clearing, Team Hawk took off before any of the leaf-nin returned. They'd caught a lucky break, one Sasuke hadn't expected. In fact, somewhere deep inside the recesses of his mind he was almost hurt that they'd just dropped him like that. He could maybe -_maybe-_ reason Naruto doing so, but Sakura? It just wasn't done. Yet she'd instigated their retreat and persuaded Naruto to leave. His mind automatically passed it off as fear and weakness.

"Hn," he grumbled as he noticed his team's background prattle. He had no idea who he answered or what question he was answering, but payed enough attention to know he was asked something. The rest he just ignored. It was a long run to their mountain based hideout and he would go mad listening to them the whole way otherwise.

"Kisame," Itachi addressed his partner monotonely. Itachi had used up much of his chakra against his little brother, and didn't feel like wasting anymore to perform the required entry jutsu. He scoffed internally, there were so many precautions the Akatsuki took. It was almost ridiculous, even if it was needed.

"What?" Kisame barked. "You want _me_ to do it? C'mon! I'm low too-" Itachi only gave him a hard stare.

"..."

"Shit. Fine, but lighten up a little, huh?" As Kisame undid the seal guarding the entrance, Itachi crossed his arms under his cloak and waited, looking ahead of him at nothing imparticular.

"Hn."

Once the doorway was safe and visible, Itachi reached out through his cloak to rest his hand on the wide stone door. Kisame did the same, and a faint blue glow surrounded their hands as the jutsu placed upon the door read and identified their chakra. There was a brief pause before a thin white line sparked down vertically in between their hands. From there the heavy grey stone doors moved inwards to open wide for them.

After making their way through the halls they reached the room where the rest of the Akatsuki had gathered.

"Itachi. Kisame," Pein greeted them, adding a nod.

Itachi nodded in return while Kisame asked; "How is he, Pein-sama?" Receiving solomn faces around the room, Kisame frowned. "I can't believe Sasori-san let a girl kill him-"

"He isn't dead yet, yeah! We just have to find someone who can fix him," Deidara exploaded, coming out from his solitary sulking. As soon as it was out though, he went back. He was trying emensly to find a way to fix this himself. To help his partner get well.

Just then, Konan came out of the back room. She'd heard what Deidara had said, but appeared unfazed. She already knew she wasn't capable. "Pein is working up a list of skilled medic-nin that would be willing to help us. This isn't over yet Kisame. Don't jinx it..."

Kisame grunted his response, but said nothing. He had high doubts, everyone could see. Finally before any fighting or bickerring started, Pein sighed and began. "We have another problem..."

All eyes snapped to him, well Itachi's more like 'slid' over. "Danzo has been neutralized. They discovered his treatury and have left him in a state which he could no more harm a child. Adding to the list, he's under high security. Complete lockdown. He is useless to us now."

This created problems for numerous reasons. They no longer had an informant, or another hand. Danzo had also been apart of the Akatsuki, although, indirectly. They needed to fill his spot now that there was absolutely no chance at recovering him. The rest of the Akatsuki knew this as well, and just as faces were starting to fall a high pitched, annoying voice called out.

"Tobi-san knows who we can ask! Tobi-san knows who-"

"Shut it, bird for brains!" Hidan yelled at Tobi. He was pissed off enough as it was, he didn't want to deal with Tobi going on 'broken record mode' again.

Pein sighed, "Yes Tobi. What is it you have to add?"

Everyone was watching Tobi and Pein, except for Deidara who still had his blue eyes trained on the ground, not caring about anything save his partner. And Itachi who was glancing at Deidara with a bored expression. But inside Itachi was trying just as hard to find a solution to what he was sure had Deidara so occupied. Sasori needed a medic, and he was quickly finding an answer.

"Itachi-san's little aniki! He's strong! Tobi knows...! He almost killed Deidara-Sempai."

Deidara was still way too deep in thought to notice he'd been mentioned, let alone degraded. Itachi, however, did hear and he turned his eyes to Pein who automatically looked back at him, feeling the eyes of the Uchiha on him.

"I think that's a bad idea," Itachi said evenly. Pein knew that Sasuke was out to kill him, they all did.

Pein shook his head, "It is. But, I don't see how he'd ever have a proper chance at you, Itachi. Too many obstacles, even if you were both on the same team." Before Itachi could disagree, Pein amended, "Though I won't place you in such a position. Tobi."

"Hai! Leader-sama!"

"It's your idea. You will be in charge of retrieving him."

"Wahh! B-b-b-b-ut, Tobi is a _good _boy.Why does Tobi get stuck with the Uchiha-san? Can't someone come with Tobi? Tobi is scared..."

"No," The entire group of Akatsuki barked, Deidara finally coming out of his thoughts, though very quiet. He still couldn't resist adding in his bit to slam Tobi.

Itachi had only said 'no' because he thought Tobi would deserve any injury he got while 'retrieving' Sasuke. His fault Itachi would have to deal with his little brother daily from then on. He hoped Sasuke refused _and_ gave him a beating for remembrance.

"You leave tomorrow, Tobi. By yourself. Unless...someone _wants_ to help out..?"

Hidan, Kakuzu, Kisame and both Zetsu's scoffed. "HA!"

"As if, yeah," Deidara.

"Have fun," came Itachi's dark reply. Tobi sank to the floor in shock and whined before Itachi continued to Pein. "Pein," Itachi knew Sasori's condition must have been severe and that Deidara wouldn't like it, but... "I noticed something interesting upon leaving my brother then..."

Pein stopped him. "The kyuubi's team? Yes I know. I'm already aware. You think that their medic-nin is acceptable."

Itachi nodded once. "Word has it that she trained under the sanin, Tsunade," Pein stated.

"That is true, Pein-sama. I've seen her at work. And they aren't too far now." Itachi spoke in monotone, waiting for the moment when their conversation would click inside Deidara...maybe if they were lucky it would go unnoticed...?

"Nani? Are you serious? No way! That bitch is the one that caused this to happen! Find someone else, I won't let _her_ touch him." Deidara was fuming, and had crossed his arms in both defiance and an attempt to hold in anything else he was dying to add.

"All the more reason that she should be the one to make up for it, Deidara. And we aren't _asking_ you. Or anyone. The sanin's aprentice is perfect. She even found the antidote for Sasori's poison, if I remember correctly. She's sharp and has probably surpased Tsunade by now," Pein argued. There was no going against him, but Deidara must have lost his mind.

"I can't believe this! She'll sabotage him if anything! Like hell would she heal him, or do _anything_ else we ask her to. No, Pei-"

"Enough! I don't care to listen to your useless attemps at swaying me. We need Sasori to get better _properly_ and fast. At this rate, Konan has lost too much chakra -he won't make it to the end of the week, never mind two more!" Pein took a deep breath. Stopping there. He knew what Deidara was feeling, but he didn't have the time or patience to sit around and argue with him.

Deidara mumbled under his breath, but otherwise, shut up. "Stupid Pein-sama and his damn rules...freaking girl...stupid..."

"Itachi and Kisame- you'll both go and bring her back here. Rest tonight and leave tomorrow morning."

"Hai, Pein-sama. Demo... that little mist brat managed to bust my leg. I can go, but..." Kisame warned. He'd been reasonably injured in his fight with that Suigetsu brat. Yeah he would have won, but avoiding _every_ attack wasn't possible with the kid. His leg was bashed with the flat side of the sword, he ignored it most of the way over, but now it was killing him.

Pein nodded, he'd better send someone else to lend them a hand... "Deidara will go with you." They nodded and Itachi glaced at Deidara, who was immediately shouting his opinion.

"No _way!_ Not a chance, yeah! I refu-"

Pein had turned to head into the back room with Konan, and now he looked back over his shoulder. Glaring menacingly at him from the side, shadows hid most of his face that barely revealed his wonderfully evil smirk. No one argue's with him, and... "No one talks about me behind my back..." With that, Pein dissapeared through the large doors with Konan.

Deidara paled. _'He... h-heard me, yeah,'_ he thought to himself. His eye twitched and he glanced over to his two temporary partners. "Can't someone _else_ go? Please, yeah!"

"Nope, we've all got our own missions," Kakuzu said absentmindedly.

"Yeah, right, like what? I'll _trade_ you."

"No. It's classified."

"Sure it is, yeah. More like finances..." Sure enough, Kakuzu held up a folder he'd pulled from his cloak titled _'Financing'._ Deidara sighed,

"Hidan...?" he tried.

"Forget it, Deidara. You heard Pein-sama. I don't want any fucking part in this. Stitching my head back on all the time is a pain in the ass."

Deidara grimaced, a bead of sweat formed on his brow, "Zets-" he paused and looked around quickly. "Where the hell did Zetsu go?"

"Oh," Kisame began passively as him and Itachi started to leave. "He left a _long _time ago. Smart bastard." The rest of the Akatsuki began filing out leaving Deidara hanging. Tobi stayed behind a moment and ran up to Deidara to pull on his arm.

"Tobi is sorry, Deidara-Sempai. Tobi would have traded with Deidara-sempei, but Tobi has important mission tomorrow!" Deidara shrugged roughly out of Tobi's grip.

"Hmph!" and he stalked off to his room, arms crossed tightly.

"Thank you," Sakura said to the three ANBU leaving with Kakashi. They had come with Captain Yamato. Her and Naruto had returned to Sai and Kakashi in time to administer some healing aid, Sai was fine, but Kakashi needed to get to the hospital where there was more equipment that could help him. Not long after did Yamato show up with the ANBU. He'd be fine, but they were all still worried.

"Hey, Sakura."

"Hey, Naruto." Sakura smiled dimly as she plopped down on the sleeping bag next to his.

After a few minutes of just looking up at the stars through the leafy forest ceiling, Naruto spoke. "Sakura, I'm sorry. I couldn't-"

"Don't worry about it Naruto, I'm totally fine. Just get some rest and think about getting him tomorrow." Before Naruto could say anything more Sakura rolled out of her make-shift bed to speak with Yamato. He was just on the other side with Sai. When she approached him quietly, he appeared to have something he didn't want to spill.

"What is it, Captain Yamato?" She asked cautiously.

"Uh, Sakura-san... Pakkun... is having some trouble finding Sasuke's scent," he finally admitted after what seemed like forever. "Until we find out which way he went..."

"We can't go far," she finished for him. Though this annoyed her, thoroughly, she didn't mind all that much when it came down to it. But Naruto would be jumping off walls. And spending the next day or so with an agitated Naruto from sitting practically still for any long period of time could drive her insane. She sighed. "Alright, goodnight Cpt. Yamato." Suddenly, her question was unimportant and forgotten. She just wanted to escape her thoughts and get some sleep.

"Sakura?"

"It's nothing, Naruto. Night." And Sakura yawned, making Naruto chuckle and lay his head down on his pack, using it as a pillow.

"Night, Sakura."

**(A/N):**

TRANSLATIONS:

Aniki- Brother

Demo- But

Hai- Yes

Ne- huh?/right/ say- (ie): Say, Sasuke. Did you do something with your hair?

Shannaro- Cha!

So this chapter took me _way_ longer to write than I thought it would. A lot of the beginning was just filler, so I guess that's what made it so hard to write. I'm going to start the third chapter now, while it's still fresh in my mind. I think waiting two days before writting the second chapter screwed with my train of thought. Never again! Cha!

Please comment. review. I love hearing from you. And thanks to some insight I got from reading another persons A/N, I know have an open mind about flames. They can make a person better, yeah? Build from the bad. I think this chapter was good, I mean I had lots of trouble at the start because it was, you know 'filler', but maybe it was too detailed? Or do you guys like detail? I'm a detail person, but it might have been too much. I can't really say. I'm _biased_. Duh. Oh! I know! I'll ask Sasuke!

*No you won't.*

Already did! Ha! What do you think, Sasuke?

*I'm biased too moron. But you could have at least made me act a little more kick ass. Tch, letting Suigetsu save my ass. How degrading.*

Don't worry Sasuke, your time will come. I promise you.

*You better, else I'll-*

SO! Deidara! How 'bout you..?

*un.*

woah, that was a bit too Sasuke-ish.

*Well he already said my answer, yeah! I'm Biased! Just like everyone else in this story. Besides. I hate you. Making me go on that damned mission. AND its with the UCHIHA! How DARE you pair me with _him_.*

ALRIGHT! I'm sorry Dei-kun. But I gotta go, the longer I wait, the longer all my readers do.

Comei! (sorry, the in-formal way, sort of)

REVIEW! XD And I ENCOURAGE flames, XD Until someone breaks my heart.. Kidding!


	3. Chapter 3  New Strengths and New Allies

**(A/N): **Hello all! Thanks again to _everyone _ that favorited and reviewed my story. It makes me happy to know that others think I am doing a good job. Alright, on a side note- would anyone be so kind as to tell me what those _'fruit ratings_' are? Like Citrus, and Lemons and I think Lime is what I've seen, I caught on enough to figure out that they refer to how intense the romance is or some shtuff like that, but where exactly they stand.. I don't know. Like which is the most... um PG and which is- okay well Highest to lowest. You get it. So, again if someone could let me know that would be cool. I guess I'm a noob XD Speaking of, some friends and I were talking about anime- Naruto- and stuff and someone asked if we were 'B tards' or B tangs, or something. I know it's anime related, and that not being one or something has got to do with how hard core anime you are. Or something, I really don't know. When I asked him, he said "I can't tell you, It'd be breaking rules #1 and 2." and then laughed at my dissapointed expression. I wants to knowww! *pouts* So now you all know I can sometimes have no regard for rules... well at least some.

Finally on to my chapter, by the way- thanks for waiting and to **Jinchurikigrl**- your welcome. And by the way, You and **alexxsakura **are so far my biggest viewers. Like review wise XD-

**DISCLAIMER**: I swear to GOD, I wasn't the genius that thought up Naruto! Therefore, I do not own it. Cha!

**IMPORTANT! Orientation for the story**, after Sasori was nearly killed, Deidara went on a mission with Tobi to let off all his steam, almost getting himself killed against a _'certain someone'_, luckily Tobi got his butt in there and got them both out in time before he knew Deidara would resort to blowing himself up. 'Wink wink, nudge nudge- you better have read this! It's too troublesome to explain in the story. Or at least in this chapter. Yeah, it'll be a few chapters later. Alright! Here!

~Chapter 2 recap-

_"What is it, Captain Yamato?" She asked cautiously. _

_"Uh, Sakura-san... Pakkun is having some trouble finding Sasuke's scent...__**,**__" he finally admitted after what seemed like forever. "Until we find out which way he went..."_

_"We can't go far," she finished for him. Though this annoyed her, thoroughly, she didn't mind all that much when it came down to it, but Naruto would be jumping off walls. And spending the next day or so with an agitated Naruto from sitting practically still for any long period of time could drive her insane. "Alright, goodnight, Cpt. Yamato." Suddenly, her question was un-important and forgotten. She just wanted to escape her thoughts and get some sleep. _

_"Sakura?"_

_"It's nothing, Naruto. Night." Sakura dismissed him with a yaw, making Naruto chuckle and lay his head down on his pack, using it as a pillow. _

_"Night, Sakura." _

**Chapter 3 ~New strengths and New allies~**

The next morning, Sakura woke up early. She'd been restless for the most part of the night, and stealing a glance back at the peacefully, sleeping Naruto, she envied him. Nothing woke him up, not unless there was ramen handy. The mere smell of it would have him bolting up faster than any jack-rabbit would out run a snake. He looked so calm and oblivious. Sakura chuckled softly, he was still fairly oblivious while he was awake. Even so, despite his heavy sleepers habit, she carefully removed herself from her sheets and rose from the make-shift bed, using the tree for support in her current state of wearyness.

Sai, and Captain Yamato were fast asleep at the moment, too. They'd all be up within an hour or so, so she let them have the extra time to rest. Pakkun, however was still awake, he hadn't gone to sleep yet, and was still searching for any remnants of Sasuke's scent. Sakura thought absently that the mist-nin, Suigetsu, from Sasuke's team, must have covered up their scent. His water chakra was skilled enough to accomplish such a feat from what Sakura remembered.

Sasuke. There wasn't anymore twisting of her heart when she thought about him, like there would have been a year ago. Her 16th birthday had marked off a new start. The day she didn't get her wish, she gave up on it all together. She was sick of constantly letting Sasuke weigh her down. Sick of fawning over him even _longer_ before that. Instead, she felt just the slightest hint of remorse. She really didn't care anymore. Her inner never argued with her on that point, and she didn't feel weird admiting to it, but there was _something_ that felt hollow. Like some part of her felt that it should care, and felt guilty that it didn't. Leaving it empty, and undecided.

"Undecided?" She murmured to herself, low enough for only her ears. Pakkun was too in the zone to notice her anyway as she walked down to the river bank to wash her face. She stared into the water a moment before slowly cupping her hands down to catch some of the water and splash her face. Rubbing out the sleep from her eyes the girl moved her partially wet bangs away and out of her vision. The bright green orbs resembled groggy cats eyes as they trained their gaze back into the watery mirror. She thought about how she could have been undecided, the word sounded right, but she couldn't make sense of it herself.

Staring back at her was a lithe figure, knelt down onto the river-side. Silky and short pink hair cut in a way that gave a hint to her attitude, despite it's vulnerable color. And eyes that captured the essence of the forest, but none of it made sense. She was pretty, and yet she didn't feel like she was. Weren't inner emotions supposed to shine out in a persons exterrior? She leaned forward on her hands which gripped the grassy edge. She looked -dejected, but in a way that she would still appear animated. At least to some extent. The kunoichi from team 7 didn't have to try very hard anymore to forget things like the past, and so she took on a certain facade. One in which her emotions raged inside her, but filtered through her skin into indifference. But that word, _undecided_, racked through her brain relentlessly. It came up when she was thinking of _him_, so did that mean something? She felt as if there was a low hum of agreement inside her, echoing against the hollow walls.

"What's that supposed to mean, huh?" She asked herself in a hushed, irritated tone. She had just seen Sasuke yesterday and nothing had happened. Nothing _changed_ in her. She had cast out that piece of her soul and thrown it away. Something that caused her pain wasn't worth holding onto, she had reasoned. And when she encountered him, she remained indifferent. Like she'd almost never even known him. Excluding the fact that she spazzed out and attacked him. Which was inevidable. It was either her or Naruto that would have done it, and she wanted to show that jerk just how '_weak'_ she still was. She'd done that at least, and given him a small memento to boot. Then why was she 'supposedly' _undecided_?

Staring down hard at her reflection, she tried to see something. Anything. The water shimmered, partly because the sun was just beginning to rise and the glow streaming from it filtered through the trees in an enchanting sort of way, and partly because of something else she wasn't aware of. From her peripheral vision she could make out a small pink sakura petal floating down. Riding the soft breeze and landing onto the water, creating a patern of calm ripples drifting and growing around it's touch. Sakura's reflection was distorted and... slowly... began to shift in appearance.

"Naruto..." The image in the water showed Naruto, giving her a bright smile and thumbs up.

_'We'll get him back, Sakura-chan. Remember? I made a promise, ne?'_

Sakura's brows knit together, mostly in confusion, but she felt bad for burdening him with such a task. She was about to say so when just as quick as he'd come, he was replaced by Kakashi.

_'The life of a ninja is hard, Sakura. It surprises us with things we aren't always ready to deal with. That is why a ninja must always look beneath what they see and hear and reach down into their feelings and instinct. The truth in us all is always somewhere within our reach and yet, there are times when we don't always _want _ to see it. A ninja must be willing to tackle any feat, and in doing so must understand themselves. Look behind the obvious, beneath what is already hidden, and deeper. No one is ever without an answer,'_ Kakashi lectured her.

He had always been fairly wise, infact she remembered this one, having heard it once before. It was a memory of hers... wasn't it? She knew she was right when the picture changed again into the Sasuke she remembered from her childhood.

_'Hn. Go home. You're in my way here...__**. **__You're still...annoying.' _The harsh stare of Sasuke is what glared back at her now. And suddenly she realized.

_"I am undecided... in that I don't know if I want Sasuke to return."_

**"**_**Or if you **_**need**_** him to," **_Inner threw in.

_"But why the hell would I want him back? He doesn't give a damn about us? What hurts even more is that Naruto still has hope for him. Sasuke is going to crush him, like he did me and he doesn't see it_," she thought angrily.

Sakura felt a hot sting brim the edges of her eyes. The tears betrayed her as they fell onto her porcelain cheeks. _"Sasuke made his choice. I won't try and change it anyway. I'm done with it." _

_**"You can't change what you feel, Sakura,"**_ her Inner stated calmly.

"Watch me!" she retorted quickly out loud, rising from the waters edge and throwing in a nearby rock to disturb the images.

_**"Stubborn like always..."**_ Sakura took about four determined steps back to camp before she stopped abruptly to look back at the river. Finally registering that what had just happened in the water, was not a normal occurance, and was shocked.

"What the hell...did I...?" Sakura trailed off.

_**"You aren't insane. I'm just going to say that now."**_

"Then.., what...?"

_**"I think I'll let you figure this one out for yourself this time around. I wonder how fast you'll get it..."**_ Perturbed, Sakura did two things. One; calmly did a mental re-run of the previous events, and two; stole into her inner's mind for an answer. It was decently guarded, but she got enough information to compose a decent guess.

"Holy...**.** -Kami."

_"No way," _she thought. The pinkette walked back to the edge of the water, her steps guarded and careful and pulled out a small packet from her butt pack. She looked at it for a long minute before her bright green eyes slid over to the water. She swallowed, and breathed deeply. Ignoring her inner's rants about cheating, and such- it was after all, nearly impossible to hide any information from one another. Sakura didn't know why inner even tried. Finally she opened it up and placed the small piece of paper in her palm, quickly flowing her chakra through it before she could change her mind.

To her utter astonishment, the chakra paper became very soggy, very quickly. Tilting her hand to the side, the paper dripped off onto the dewy grass and she sighed in awe.

"I... got my first chakra nature. It...finally developed." She paused in astonishment, wondering how it could have possibly happened. "Wow...**.**"

_"I don't believe this...what's going on?"_

_**"Well you better. And it's exactly as you said. Duh. What else could it be?" **_

"I don't understand. Why?" Sakura wondered aloud.

_**"How should I know? I'm the same as you. Why don't you ask someone else with this nature. They'll know what happened, right?"**_

_"But Kakashi is gone."_

_**"Yeah but Cpt. Yamato isn't. He also has this nature, remember?"**_

_"Right."_

Sakura let the rest of the soggy paper, that was more or less completely water now, slip through her fingers and turned back to camp. With more questions than she'd left with. Not only did she have to deal with her conflicting emotions, but now she had new chakra to figure out. Although, it was more the shock of actually getting it rather than if she could use it properly or not. Chakra was like puddy in her capable hands. More or less.

A low thud sounded as he threw a sharp kunai effortlessly into a far tree to his left. His eyes slid over to glare in that direction, Sharingan boring through the dense wood to pierce an unknown chakra. Aside from that, he didn't move. The fire crackled in the quiet night and shadowed his features considerably. But his _eyes_, they were visible no matter how dark the surrounding area got. They emitted their own personal, predatorial glow.

"What do you want?" he demanded in a slow languid tone. He didn't bother asking 'who', because whoever _it _was, he was probably going to kill. He'd been in a particularly bad mood lately and this guy had bad timing. He had just woken up from a light sleep -he hardly ever _really _slept anymore- after sensing a chakra presence approach.

There was no response and so he became impatient, "I won't ask again," he warned threateningly. Sasuke didn't look it, but his body was coiled expertly ready to react to most anything. He sat leaning against a tree of his own, one arm draped over a bent knee, the other rested at his side. His Kusanagi lay slanted against the curve between his neck and shoulder. If anything, Sasuke looked rather bored.

At last the figure came out from behind the exact tree he had planted his kunai in. The flickering flames revealed a tall form adorned with the infamous Akatsuki cloak and an orange mask. He narrowed his eyes, recognizing both the clothing and the member.

"You." He didn't remember a name, but he knew they both understood what he meant. The orange masked Akatsuki had interrupted his fight with that blonde partner of his**(A/N: Read IMPORTANT Notice at top of chapter- shame if you didn't... TT_TT JOKES! But seriously..for shame. XP P.s. Sorry for the A/N here, I felt it was needed). **

He ought to settle that score right this second, but honestly-he didn't feel like it. The member didn't appear to be worth his time from what he remembered and from now...

"G-g-g-gomei! Tobi didn't mean to bother Uchiha-san. He promises he isn't here to cause trouble! Tobi is a _good _boy! Only wanting to talk, Tobi swears!" The idiot blurted out in a reasonably loud rush.

Before he could say anymore, Sasuke interrupted with quiet harshness, "Yeah, well yelling stupidly like that is a good way to start trouble. Tch." He motioned with a jerk of his chin towards the three lumps laying about the camp site.

Team Hawk all lay sleeping -for the time being that is, thankfully their chakra patterns flowed evenly and showed no sign of being aroused by the Akatsuki's disturbance. The last thing he needed was for Karin to have another excuse to fawn over him and 'protect' him. Even worse still was that an argument between her and Suigetsu would surely follow... Kami, sometimes he swore they were more annoying than his ex-teammates themselves. And by his standars, that was saying something. The more time he had to himself _without_ Karin and her disgusting attempts, the better. It was really the only time he had peace and come to think of it, this Tobi person was disturbing it... Of all times-

As Tobi began to nod in acknowledgement while miming the sealing of his lips through his swirly orange mask, Sasuke quickly spat; "Get _on _with it. You're trying my patience. What business is it that the Akatsuki has with us?" Sasuke re-thought his wording and figured it wasn't actually his entire team they had 'business' with, but rather with only him. Still, he didn't take back his words.

"Oh, Hai! And Leader-sama doesn't want all of you, just Uchiha-san." Tobi spoke in a ridiculous whisper and Sasuke resisted the urge to roll his eyes before thinking over his words. _'Wants'? What for..?_

"..." Rather than waste the energy of asking him, Sasuke fixed Tobi with a glare that said it all in a scarily obvious way, Sharingan, of course, still activated. His eyes prodded him to continue without much effort on his part.

Tobi muttered something under his breath about how scary and alike Sasuke was compared with Itachi-san. Sasuke heard it easily enough, even if it was partially muffled by that dumb mask he always seemed to be wearing. In response, Sasuke narrowed his eyes and that's all it took to get Tobi to sing like a bird.

"Ah! -Leader-sama wants Tobi to bring back Uchiha-san! Leader-sama said Uchiha-san would be very good in helping Akatsuki." Sasuke thought over Tobi's words, immediately being opposed to such an idea. His 'brother' was one of them, and there was no way in hell he'd let himself work with him, not a chance that he'd let himself be on the same side as Itachi.

"Go to hell. Why would I ever help Akatsuki? What good does it bring me?" Sasuke didn't exactly snap, he was relatively calm, but anyone could tell a button had been pushed and that his voice betrayed his anger.

Tobi seemed to think honestly about that for a moment before you could almost literally _see_ the lightbulb go on. He'd apparently thought of _something _viable.

"Tobi knows! We have the same goal! Tobi is a good _and _smart boy!" Tobi paused enjoying his moment, but quickly resumed before Sasuke could become angry, "Uchiha-san knows about Konoha's role in the destruction of the Uchiha clan, yes?" Recieving a slow nod from Sasuke he continued,

"Well, Leader-sama is going to destroy Konohagakure! Uchiha-san wants revenge, yes? So Akatsuki will help, in exchange for your help." Sasuke could tell there was more than just that on their list of things to do, but he found himself considering it and his mind wandered back to another possibility.

His brother would be there. All the time. He'd have countless opportunities to kill Itachi then. Though they weren't stupid, and neither was Sasuke. He figured they'd take that into consideration before allowing him to 'join' their group. He'd have to bide his damn time for who knows how long before he were given any sort of leeway. Even worse is wondering how long he could take being around Itachi without snapping. Yes, the destruction of Konohagakure was a goal of his, but that did not exempt Itachi in Sasuke's eyes. He had two things he _would_ accomplish. One: Destroying Konoha and eveyone in it. And Two: Killing Itachi. Nothing would stop him, his mind was set.

A few things bothered him though. "Why does the Leader of Akatsuki need my help? Why not someone else?" It almost seemed like a dumb question when he really thought about it, he was almost sure he already knew why.

"Tobi thinks it's because of Uchiha-san's strength and Sharingan, but Uchiha-san would have to ask Leader-sama to be sure. No one else has the Sharingan, that is why. So does this mean Uchiha-san accepts and Tobi's mission is a success?" Sasuke could feel Tobi grinning like a mad idiot beneath his mask and his eyes narrowed, searching for what little information he could gather no thanks to that damned mask.

"How do I know I can trust you?" He wasn't all that worried, infact he felt confident in his capability of taking Tobi down if need be. The Dobe was an utter moron.

"Oh, Tobi swears! He is a _good _boy!" Tobi declaired a little too loudly. Sasuke's eyebrow twitched and glanced over quickly to scan his sleeping teammates.

"What about them?" He asked looking back at Tobi. His tone was emotionless, and well practiced with a blank face.

"Tobi can't say. It isn't Tobi's choice, Leader-sama asked specifically for Uchiha-san."

Looking back at team Hawk Sasuke thought it over, ignoring Tobi's pry's and constant chanting of that same damned question. _'Are you coming? Is Uchiha-san coming back with Tobi?' _He drowned it out easily.

This seemed like the best option. With the Akatsuki both his goals would be achieved much easier than with team Hawk. The only problem was that he was pretty sure just getting up and leaving wouldn't be the end of it. He had no doubts what so ever that Karin would hunt him down, and for her it wouldn't be hard. At all. On top of being an expert chakra sensor, she also knew his chakra like she would her own. Dammit. And with her, Suigetsu would follow either by Karin dragging him along or under the guise of getting back at Kisame. He still wanted that sword, too. And Juugo, no doubt there either. He finds safety in Sasuke and would go anywhere to keep it.

Sasuke let out an exasperated sigh.

"So? So? So? Is Uchiha-san going to come? Please say he will!"

"Shut it. Fine, yes, I'll go. Just, stop,_ talking_. I have a headache." The raven haired teen sighed once again, and stole one last glance up into the starry sky. His peaceful moment had long since been ruined. And... he decided he'd play things by ear. He knew he'd sense team Hawks approach if they ever came after him, and figured he'd be able to escape quick enough without a confrontation. He thought he'd have some time on his side, too. They wouldn't wake up for at last another six hours and they had to continue the trip to the mountain base for supplies before attempting to go after him. His head was tilted up and his eyes closed, mentally prepairing himself.

Suddenly in just a blur of movement, Tobi was next to Sasuke, grabbing his hand and hauling him up to his feat. It had been faster than Sasuke had expected from the childish ditz. In a swift action, Sasuke both effectively shrugged free from Tobi's grasp and equipped his Kusanagi on his sound style belt.

"Lead the way," was all he said, not knowing if he was eager to get gowing or not.

"Hai, Uchiha-san, but first Uchiha-san must retrieve something before Tobi can take Uchiha-san to the rest of Akatsuki and Leader-sama. Tobi will take you there and then take us to the base," The excessively loud and annoying masked Akatsuki explained as they bounded off through the forest, abandoning the still, sleeping team Hawk. He, Tobi, regretably reminded Sasuke of his former team mates, like a damned two for one deal sent from hell, times one hundred. He found himself thinking he'd make that trade any day.

"Hn."

"Uchiha-san speaks just like Itachi-san! Itachi-san is scary, but not Uchiha-san, right Uchiha-san?" Tobi attempted to glomp Sasuke mid-air stride, and he stiffened before giving Tobi an icy-cold glare, clearly communicating a death threat. Easily regaining his footing, while Tobi stumbled idiotically.

"Nope, Uchiha-san glares just like Itachi-san, too. Uchiha-san _is_ scary. But not mean, right?" And somehow or another, Tobi kept finding things to prattle on about the _entire_ way to their destination. Sasuke gave up any interaction with him unless absolutely necessary and ignored everything else. Kami, it was so hard to drown out that _annoying_ _voice of his_.

"It's called Clarity, _Sakura_." Cpt. Yamato emphasized her name, hinting for Naruto to butt out. That morning, Sakura had come to him about her Chakra Element, which he confirmed -if the chakra paper didn't already- that her element was Water. She told him of what happened, although hesitantly, she knew it wasn't a very common jutsu seeing as she'd never heard of it before. Of course, the moment Naruto woke up and caught wind of Sakura getting her first chakra nature, he jumped in asking more questions than Sakura. For which she was actually grateful. He would ask questions she maybe didn't feel comfortable asking hersefl and it happened conveniently, so that in the end her curiosity was sated, without having to suffer any possible humiliation by maybe asking a dumb question. Like now...

"But, _what's it __for__ , _Cpt. Yamato? I don't get it," Naruto prodded in a sort of half whine. Clearly he had missed the hint to leave.

With a sigh he explained again, only more in depth for Naruto, since ignoring him evidently _did not_ make him go away. He dragged a hand down his face, it really wasn't hard to understand.

"Okay, Naruto, I'll take it nice and slow for you." Yamato had picked up on a few of Kakashi's most recent habits, and Naruto scoweld, but wisely kept quiet. Obviously his curiosity outweighed any smart aleck remarks he might have made.

"Clarity is a form of Meditation Jutsu. Called Hijutsu, Mokusou no jutsu: Meikai, or Secret Art, Meditaiton Jutsu: Clarity. This one imparticular is just as the name implies. It clears the mind and brings to the surface all scrambled thoughts and presents them clearly. It manifests usuallly when one feels conflicted about many things. Why it's a water element is because the jutsu literally reflects your thoughts to you and brings forward memories within the subconcious through any body of water. Specifically ones that answer a major problem the user may have.

"Sakura, you mentioned a memory about Kakashi? He told you that the answers are always within a persons grasp and is often hidden within themselves. Meikai(Clarity) brings that hidden answer to the fore-front of the users mind, resulting in the desired answer being reflected and making it easier for the user to understand their own thoughts. It's a cipher. There are many stages to this jutsu, the first being a self thought decoder. There's a photographic memory stage, in which you would actually call upon that memory-"

Naruto looked semi lost until this moment when he chose to pipe up, "So it's like having the ultimate cheating system during a test..." he chuckled mischieviously.

"Naruto!" Sakura thumped him in the back of the head, not hard, but enough to get his attention. "You _do_ know that _that_ would only work if you actually _studied_ and _payed attention_ in class. You can't call up memories you don't have...Baka."

Naruto ginned sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head, "Yeah, I guess that makes sense, huh?" He let out a few nervous laughs before shutting up. Sakura couldn't help but smile at him despite herself. She knew Naruto was just being, well, Naruto and she admired him for it, sometimes.

"Very good, Sakura," Yamato praised. "Now, as I was saying; Eventually you can develope it enough to mold with genjutsu." Yamato held up his hand before Naruto could ask the obvious. "Wait for it. Sakura, how do you think this works?" Naruto pouted, he'd wanted to guess, but setteled for crossing his arms. Sakura paused a moment, giving it some thought.

"Well, it's a memory jutsu, so I would think that combined with a genjutsu you could manipulate an opponant's thoughts. Give them memories they never had, remove ones they do. Mess with their thinking during battle, giving them combat intructions they think are their own and then later appearing as if you'd read their minds. The possibilities are limitless, almost, but something seems off." Sakura looked a little skeptic, and Yamato felt a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Could she have...? He let her continue.

"This...is a Water based jutsu, but the jutsu itself isn't expelling any water. It's working with the mind and the body...**. **So the water element chakra circulates inside the body and chakra system, constantly running to feed the users mind to support the jutsu. But because it isn't being used in one short burst, it uses more chakra the longer it takes. But there's something else, I think it uses the _actual _water stored within the body, not just chakra. That's what makes it so potentially poweful. The jutsu is only as strong as the user, it runs partially on their own life source. So the longer it's being used, the lower my actual health gets, not just my chakra. I could dehydrate if I weren't careful."

Yamato was nodding happily, she knew pretty much all she needed to. Naruto gave them both a blank stare, and blinked once before finally caving, "So, when it's mixed with genjutsu, you get really thirsty...?" Yamato and Sakura both sighed, but Sakura ended up smirking anyway.

"You know what, Naruto? To put it rather simply, that's exactly it. Sakura, it'd be a good idea to always have a sufficient amount of water available to you from now on. Since you _are_ primarily the genjutsu type." Sakura nodded and held up her canteen to show she was already a step ahead, taking Yamato's advice seriously.

"There are probably multiple other ways to use Meikai, but just try and keep it small until you get the hang of it. For the Mokusou jutsu's you really have to focus and clear you mind. You've already done it once before, but just so you know in advance. The higher up in skill the jutsu is, the more concentration it will require to pull off in the first place. You'll have to find out on your own which jutsu effects you more with the dehydration. It's different for everyone." With that Yamato was about to go and check on Sai. He was fine now, but they were getting ready to scout the area soon so he wanted to be sure.

"Um, Cpt. Yamato?" Sakura said before he could go. She'd been wondering why it was that this jutsu ever happened, it wasn't a bloodline trait, but it was seriously uncommon for someone to posses such an ability. "Why is it that this Jutsu is so rare and..**. **Why me...?"

Yamato smilled, "Sakura, the first stage is clarity, right? A ninja must not be distracted in battle, and so they block out feeling, and emotion. Most shinobi devoid themselves of all of that. You do not, it's that raw emotion that enabled you to use that jutsu, that and your mind had been relatively clear for a moment long enough to show you what it did." And with that he went on his way.

Sakura swallowed a little, she didn't tell him of the other two memories the jutsu called forth, just the one about Kakashi, but he obviously knew she kept something from him. She sighed before going over to pack her things, all the while thinking of the most important question the jutsu raised. _'Do I really want him back?' _Naruto had promised, but now she wasn't so sure. Besides, from their last encounter Sasuke seemed just the same. Sakura found herself shoving things a little more roughly into her pack, before finally sealing them in a scroll.

She hadn't even noticed Naruto approach her and jumped slightly when he made himself known. "Jeez, Naruto! Since when could you sneak up on anyone?"

He let out a barked laugh, "Since you started spacing out, Sakura-chan. I stepped on every twig on my way." He pointed behind him to prove it.

Sakura shook her head, "You think being a shinobi you would at least by now have been avoiding that kind of stuff on second nature." Naruto just shrugged, and his smile broadened a bit.

Hooking up her kunai pouch she notice how he held his hands behind his back. "Ne, Naruto? What's that behind your back?" She asked, curious.

Naruto turned sheepish again and smiled innocently, "Well you know what Cpt. Yamato said about the whole water thing, and that you should be keeping a lot around? Well..." One hand moved up to rub the back of his head, while the other came forward to reveal his canteen. "I thought we could trade canteens since mine's a lot bigger than yours. It'd be more convenient, you know?" He offered it to her and she looked at it for a moment before breaking into a smile.

She unhooked her canteen and before handing it off in exchange for his, snuck in a quick hug. "Thank you, Naruto. You're the best." And she pulled back, making the trade and began to hook on Naruto's black and orange canteen.

"Heh heh, no problem, Sakura-chan. I mean, dying of thirst would just suck-" The decently filled canteen came hammering down onto Naruto's head, which immediately sprouted a huge lump. Sakura resumed clipping it on before walking away, completely indifferent.

Only she muttered to Naruto, "You always spoil it." Naruto went on to complain and ask what he did wrong, Sakura only smirked. He always messed up these honest and sincere gestures with his mouth. Naruto most certainly is the biggest loudmouth ninja there ever was.

"Cpt. Yamato, we're all done here!" She called to their teams captain. After the campsite had been disassembled, they were ready to do the days scouting. It was the last day for it before they gave up till another time.

Sai and Yamato came over to meet her and Naruto. "Alright, team. Here are your radios, please make sure the volume is _not_ full blast this time." Cpt. Yamato looked pointedly at a certain blonde haired boy who took the offered radio while looking away. '_Oops'_ he thought.

"Everyone set your channels to seven, sub-frequency; nine. Sai you'll head North, Naruto; west, Sakura; North-west and myself; North-east. We know from Pakkun's latest report before he left that that is the general scope in which Sasuke's team had traveled. We have till nightfall, keep an eye out for anything that might indicate they'd been through that area. If we find anything good I've set up Pakkun with a radio as well, and will be able to call him back here and start again from there. Questions?" Yamato paused, everyone had their radios hooked up accordingly around their necks and the ear pieces were all in place, none were broken, he'd made sure of that.

"Alright! Let's get this show on the road! Last one to find anything's a rotten thousand year old egg!" Naruto cheered enthusiastically, as if he'd gotten more than three hours of sleep last night. Where he got that energy from all the time, no one knew.

Yamato sighed, he'd been the so called 'rotten, thousand year old, egg' last time and shot Naruto one of his creepy stares as a reminder. Yamato had received endless teasing that day from Naruto because said blonde had actually recovered more on their small retrieval mission awhile back. In all fairness it was by accident, but Naruto insisted otherwise and pestured Yamato about not having a ninja's keen eye.

Naruto paled slightly, that look always freaked him_ right out_!

"Alright, then, GO!" Each of the four ninja set out in their designated direction, with six hours before nightfall, it was going to be a long scouting mission.

Sakura lithely dove through the brush and avoided obstacles with practiced ease, though for a seventeen year old Chunin like her, flying through the air like an acrobat was like breathing air. Easy and relaxed, the only thing taking any effort was to keep vigilent and spy every little detail with the decisiveness of a shinobi. She sent out thin waves of sensory chakra at regular intervals to scout the area ahead. She wasn't about to let anything surprise her. She'd bring Sasuke back now for one reason: Her promise to Naruto. She'd made up her mind... At least she thought as much. She found herself wondering if _Mokusou: Meikai_ would just give her straight answers instead of just making the options more clear. Ughh.

With a sigh she focused on the task at hand and ignored her thoughts. They'd still be there when she was done. They could wait.

(A/N) Thank you all for being patient, I apologize for taking this long. I really felt like the chapter was _Mocking_ me the _entire_ way through. Yeah, _mocking_ me. I found it harder to write Tobi in this one, I've no idea if he is alright or not. I'm pretty sure there's no chance of him being OOC, or anyone... if they are let me know! I love what you have to say.

Also, big thanks to my beta AGAIN for the sweetest advice EVER and to my every faithful reviewers, expecially **Jinchuurikigrl **whose pen name changed to **Okami X Ko X Bites. **

Next chapter soon!


	4. Chapter 4  The Nightmare Begins

**A/N: **Huge apology for my lateness. I know it's hardly of your concern, but I had tons of projects to hand in and didn't get to even Start writting this chapter till the 31st of march. AND THEN I GOT A DAMN VIRUS! Called freakin' _Security tool_. Bastards... Well, I paid the fix it fee just last friday-shakes head- NEVER UPLOAD SUSPICIOUS APPS FROM MYSPACE. BAD. Anyway, thank you all for the reaviews and reads, it's something I love to do and I'm glad that people enjoy what I write down. Well, on with the show~ ^^

This hasn't been Beta'd yet, but my Beta's name is still on it as a credit to her. I just posted the chapter as soon as it was done so there wouldn't be a longer wait. Again, my apologies.

**DISCLAIMER:** I Don't own Naruto, or Naruto shippuden. I'm not that amazing, I'm sorry. BUT I DO own this story! XD Cha!...

**"Dialoge in Mangekyou"= **Sakura's internal thoughts.

_**"Dialoge in Mangekyou"**_Sakura's INNER'S thoughts+voice

_"Normal Dialoge in Mangekyou"_

EVERY OTHER DIALOGE NOT IN MANGEKYOU IS SAME AS BEFORE IN PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.

WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SUFFICIENT BLOOD, VIOLENCE AND GORE. okay, maybe not _gore_, but still.

**RECAP**_**...**__(don't the dots just piss you off? it's like freakin' credits rolling hehee)__**...**_

_"Alright, then, GO!" Each of the four ninja set out in their designated direction, with six hours before nightfall, it was going to be a long scouting mission. _

_Sakura lithely dove through the brush and avoided obstacles with practiced ease, though for a seventeen year old chunin like her, flying through the air like an acrobat was like breathing air. Easy and relaxed, the only thing taking any effort was to keep vigilent and spy every little detail with the decisiveness of a shinobi. She sent out thin waves of sensory chakra at regular intervals to scout the area ahead. She wasn't about to let anything surprise her. She'd bring Sasuke back now for one reason. Her promise to Naruto. She'd made up her mind..at least she thought as much. She found herself wondering if Mokusou: Meikai would just give her straight answers instead of just making the options more clearer. Ughh. _

_With a sigh she focused on the task at hand and ignored her thoughts. They'd still be there when she was done. They could wait. _

CHAPTER FOUR...

The Nightmare...

**(Normal POV:)**

"Tobi thinks Sasuke-san should be the one to hold onto that," Tobi advised in a high-pitched tone that resembled a childs.

"Hn," Sasuke barely mumbled his response, too much in depth with his thinking and aside from that it was practically becoming a habit to ignore Tobi so thoroughly. Fingering the object descretely inside his pocket, Sasuke recalled a brief memory where he tried to link the accesories usefulness;

_Sasuke had stood straight and calm, despite his frequent pants. Training with orochimaru was not something to take lightly. With him it was, stay alert and don't be stupid or be killed. Their training session had moved abruptly to a random room Sasuke had never seen before and was probably never meant to. The room was large and nearly hollow, the only contents being some of what he assumed was Orochimaru's experimental tools all shoved into a single corner. Sasuke hadn't had enough time to pay anymore attention to his surroundings as it was quickly re-focused onto his opponent, who was of course, Orochimaru. However, he was distantly thankful that the room was both large enough and clear of any clutter to allow for their rough sparring. They had crashed in from a side wall, where some sunlight began to filter in, dawn only just now coming after three hours of the training. In what now seemed like a fluke to him, the light had refracted off his Kusanagi and onto a small object, causing it to glint and the shine to catch his eye for a moment. Displayed almost haughtily was some ring. Sasuke had no other thoughts on it as it had been irrelevent at the time, but Orochimaru must have been protective of it since even the slightest cursory glance at it from him had caused the sanin to even speak. He never did during their spars and Sasuke liked it that way. The only thing the sanin would ever normaly say were comments on posture and skill, but never conversation._

_"Hmm? You're curious, are you?" He'd asked with his usual snake slither tone. Sasuke wasn't, which was again, something Sasuke oberserved. Orochimaru was not one to speak on mere assumption, he'd blurted out his question without thinking. Sasuke had made a side note of his unusual nervousness, but otherwise payed no heed. He had no business with any ring._

_"Hn," he'd muttered, trying to put off any further disruptions and continued his assult. He hated it when things interrupted his training. Even if it was Orochimaru, it didn't mean Sasuke had to put on a show and act unbothered. _

_"A memento, if you will, of a past...club." When Sasuke hadn't answered and simply ignored him, Orochimaru gave up. Throwing in one last remark, "You never were much for conversation." _

Sasuke wondered why in Kami's name they'd had to go out all this way just to get some ring, no less Orochimaru's. He noticed Tobi wearing something similar and thought maybe they were connected. 'Maybe the cloaks weren't enough,' he thought vaguely. 'They had to go and get club rings, too.' Sasuke sighed inaudibly. The only good thing about this dumb detour was that it had probably thrown off Team Hawk. There was no way in hell they'd even guess him to have gone back to the hide-out. He wouldn't have either, but by the time he realized they had been going there he just sort of went with it. Swearing that if Tobi went out of line and asked him for something stupid like some of the sanins forbidden jutsu scrolls, or even dumber, to see if he wanted anything from his room... Glancing at the masked nin, he guessed it wasn't out of the realm of possibility, but it had mildly surprised him to find out that they went there for a ring. Of all things.

"Sasuke-san! Tobi is trying to tell you something important! _Hellooo_?" Sasuke snapped out of it then.

"What is it, Tobi?" He growled through gritted teeth. Just this guys voice was enough to drive him mad, let alone his antics for being so child-like. His sharingan glowed fiercely, scaring Tobi, yet again...

"S-s-Sasuke-san! Tobi only wanted to tell him that it would be a long time till we got to home base and also that Leader-sama has given Tobi another quick mission. Tobi promisses that he will try and hurry so Sasuke-san doesn't have to wait too long."

Not that waiting who knows how long till they finally got to 'home base' didn't bug him, but something else deemed itself more worthy of mentioning inside his head.

"Since when did I give you permission to call me _Sasuke-san_?" His eyes narrowed menacingly, not even caring that Tobi appeared to be scared as a lamb.

Tobi turned white as a sheet. "G-gomei, Sasuke-san. Tobi is a good boy, he promises, but he has to call one of the Uchiha's by name or else Tobi will get confused. G-gomei, but given his choices, Tobi thinks it is safer to call Sasuke-san his name instead of Uchiha-sans." Sasuke could have sworn Tobi's teeth were chattering and with a last lingering glare, gave up on pursuing the matter any further.

"Hn," grumbling out probably his most frequently used word, he once again followed Tobi deaftly. Not giving way for any conversation on his part or listening to Tobi's constant chatter which Tobi quickly began to supply as if Sasuke had never caused him any fear at all. It was one of those things where your mind just goes completely blank, in the peaceful sense. Not thinking of anything imparticular and the few stragler bits of thought that surfaced dying down easily into his own meditational state. Hours later into their travel, he thought he could have almost laughed when his all mind consuming thought became: "Are we there yet?" Sadly it didn't appear they were anywhere close.

**(Normal POV:)**

Sakura couldn't believe how long they'd been searching out here and with little to no results at all. The last time she was radioed was about twenty minutes ago and it was just a false alarm from Naruto. Apparently he went to investigate some suspicious rustling in the bushes, thinking maybe it was Sasuke or _some_one hinding, but it ended up being some poor little rabbit, or chicken she couldn't tell. Whatever it was had scared the crap out of Naruto, the idiot. She could almost see the expression he'd had; sheepish and comically apologetic. With a sigh, she re-focused herself on her surroundings. Still no sign of anything, even the birds were quiet, which Sakura found mildly upsetting. _'Maybe another storm is coming?' _

**'Tch, I hope not. We'll never find them if we get anymore rain out here and it's muddy enough to begin with. I **_**hate**_** the rain.'**

"I like it," Sakura murmured aloud, obviously not realizing it and continuing inside her mind. _'Since when do you not like the rain?' _

**'Since it ruined our chances of finally getting to Sasuke! I swear, when I see him-'**

"_Shush_," She commanded both inside and out. She already knew and besides, she didn't want to think about it. It ruined her 'zen', her _calmness. _She deffinitely needed to consentrate incase anything went wrong and really? Who cares? Half of her wanted to punch his lights out. Sometimes almost permanentaly and the other half wanted _nothing_ to do with him. At least that's what she thought.

She heaved a long, frustrated sigh through her nose, latching onto a large branch and coming to a stop dangling high above the forest floor. Holding on with one hand, she used the other to make a hand sign, a simple half tiger to focus her chakra and sent out a long even wave of her sensory chakra through the forest. Nothing.

Just as she was about to break the sign, she felt a slight movement through her chakra. Her eyebrows furrowed for just a moment before her expression set back into an experienced shinobi's. Completely neutral and as near to totally free of emotion as she could get. It lasted for about three seconds before the mask faltered ever so slightly. She'd _thought_ it had been Sasuke that she found..., but apparently, it wasn't so. She almost radioed in the abnormality -no one that wasn't a shinobi would be out this deep in the forest, this late before sunset and therefore was considered a threat before proved otherwise, but she didn't want to screw up and report a mistake like Naruto had. _'Besides,' _she reasoned with herself. _'There was only two of them, normal nin squads held teams of three or four. I can totally deal with this myself, no need to bother the others. At least not yet, ne?'_

Sakura searched their chakra signatures, which she confirmed were familiar, but it unsettled her as she tried to place the sense. She still hung lithely from her branch, completely unmoving except for her steady breathing. _'Think, Sakura. Where have you felt this before?' _

She discovered a moment later, after stealthily threading her chakra senses into the two people's, that they were shinobi and not just silly genin either. These two seemed _strong_ and they must have been masking their chakra expertly to have avoided being identified by her. '_Shit,' _she thought harshly.

She recoilled her chakra, which snapped back to her obediantly like an elastic band. She had to report this to Cpt. Yamato, now.

Just as her hand relaxed out of the sign, her highly tuned ears picked up a sound. She had just a half a seconds notice with barely a glance at the danger before her body swung itself forward to land, quiet as a cat, on the same branch. Twisting quickly to cover her lithe form behind the trees convenient shelter. High above, behind a large tree trunk, Sakura hid herself from view. Immediately having masked her chakra to a 'T'. Her body was pressed tight againt the bark as she peared around to get another look. The 'danger', was in recognizing her visitors. Who were a tad too close for comfort.

_'Akatsuki!' _she sneered mentally. Inner hissed in response as well.

That was why! That blonde nin that killed Gaara, Deidara if she remembered from the files she'd read. She had made contact with him back then and her chakra recognized it. The other was familar, but she couldn't place any names. Whoever the S-class nin was, he had an odd shade of blue for skin color and along with Deidara, was probably -no wait- was _deffintely_, bad news.

Her eyes narrowed as she watched them walk ignorantly below her. There was still a good yard or so of distance between them before they'd be passing directly below her now. She still didn't like it. _'Damn, they travel fast, but they're _walking_! How far did my chakra sense actually go?' _Then the answer hit her.

_'Of course.'_

**'Duh.' **

_'I need water. My chakra mixed with my bodies chemical properties, so of course being dehydrated would eventually deplete my chakra.' _

**'Hurry up and drink some damn water and radio Yamato before I smack you! They're AKATSUKI, dammit! NO chances.'**

Sakura nodded mentally and deaftly took Naruto's canteen from her side, taking a generous drink almost too quietly to be normal. Perhaps her adrenaline was kicked into overdrive already. Just the high of anticipation was setting her off. Typical. They _were_ after Naruto. She _had_ to call them.

But then, her thoughts interrupted her. Wasn't the blue guy always paired with Uchiha, Itachi? She was almost certain of it... Something was wrong here.

_'Crap. Really bad feeling- really bad. Call for help!'_

Sakura let out a small whisper of a breath and reached up to toggle to switch on the microphone, still looking around the tree and keeping her eyes locked on the Akatsuki members. She wasn't going to let them out of her sight. She would probably have to shadow them before they all, as a team, could confront them.

"Troubl-" Sakura had barely managed to finish whispering the single word on the mass broadcast frequency before the cord was ripped off her collar, effectively breaking any further _verbal _ contact with her team. The eerie crackling noise that the ripping of the radio caused echoed through her ears. She'd felt the sudden presence the moment it happened, an instantaneus realization that left her frozen. The feeling was similar to when you could literally feel a person right infront of you, just add petrified to that feeling and it's all set.

Sakura's eyes were wide, expecting to be taken out any second, only the second never came. She refused to look away from where her gaze was still stubbornly fixated on the two Akatsuki members. _'Clones?' _ She thought hopefully, not wanting to think of the more likely possibility, all the while thinking how in Kami's name he had found a way to squeeze through her radar unnoticed. He must have been way better at hiding his chakra than the other two.

**'No...'**

Sakura bit her lip before regaining her reserves of strength and taking her opponants lapse in action as her chance. Intelligently refraining from turning her head too look at her attacker, she lifted her foot ever so slightly and SMASH!

With hardly any chakra at all, Sakura slammed her foot down on the limb of the tree she had deemed her all-to-soon-discovered hiding place. The force ran right through to the other end, reverberating through the entire tree in less then a blink of the eye. The strong branch was easily snapped off on contact, giving the enemy another moments pause and yet another to catch their balance and the large branch fell loudly, bringing others with it to the muddy ground.

The noise had alerted the two Akatsuki down below, but that didn't matter anymore to Sakura. What mattered was escape, safety. Her chakra spike should have cleared up her broken message, she just had to hang on. Three against one was really not good. Considering who her direct opponant was, it wasn't much of a surprise to find he'd regained his balance so soon as Sakura had only managed to pull out a kunai and tense to prepare for a jump. Away from immediate danger. Her head was still turned away from him, but was horrifyingly forced to watch as the other two came closer.

This was all happening so fast that Sakura only had the time to think about it as the air from inside her rushed out in one quick burst. He had punched her in the gut, forcing her to crumple forward slightly, but was quickly straightened tight up against the tree. Her eyes snapped shut while she thought. He had managed to find footing on the limited space of the newly shortened branch and was pressing a sharp kunai to her throat. The other arm was braced across her chest, restricting most of her arms movement. The tips of his nin sandals were touching hers and there was seriously no more tree after his heels. Her attack had managed to comprimise her situation, but she was so not giving into death right now. Her head was still turned away from him, even with her eyes shut, she wouldn't risk anything. She could fight like this if she had to. She could maybe even repel his genjutsu if she wanted to chance it, but there was no way she wanted to take that chance unless absolutely necessary. All she knew was that she wasn't going to open her eyes.

She heard the other two approach, they were probably standing at their level somewhere on a tree across from them by the sounds of it.

"Hey! Itachi-san, get it over with already!" A voice she didn't recognize, so it had to be the blue colored one.

She felt the kunai press slightly more against her neck, he angled it so that the pressure would force her head to turn towards him. She did, but her eyes remained defiantly closed. Her features revealed nothing but determination and fearlessness. Yeah she was scared, but really? What shinobi wouldn't be when facing one of the most feared S-class Akatsuki? Let alone three. But then, what shinobi would show any sign of fear? None. So her face appeared slighlty relaxed if only a little agitated.

"Open your eyes," Itachi commanded tonelessly. His breath fanned across her sensitive face, the scent, the feel, everything made her tense even more so than before. Reminding her that if she had been in this situation as a genin, she'd be toast. Right there she might have crumpled in a heap of tears, begging for her life. That is what Itachi's killer scent told her; no nonsense, or die. Simple as that. If she read into it enough she could tell how he was slightly annoyed at how she was making whatever it was they were doing difficult for them.

**'Well. Difficult's our middle name, ain't it?' **

Sakura ignored her, though she agreed. "Not going to happen," she answered him back just the same. In that sort of 'end-of-disscussion' tone and with the little movement she could manage, she bent her right arm, holding the kunai, forward and infront of her to press it against Itachi's stomach. At just the right point where he could bleed to death should she wish it now. She didn't need her eyes to tell her where weak points were, she was afterall an medic-nin. He was too tall for her limited movement to threaten another vital spot, like his heart or lung, so she settled for the stomach. Yes, it would be a slow death, but her options were low and she couldn't afford to care about how painful his death would be.

She could feel his glare on her and if it was possible, her face adjusted to mimic a glare through her eyelids. She heard him grunt slightly and then felt immense pressure pushing her chest in. He was crushing the air out from her with his arm that was still holding her, braced across her chest in a tight constriction.

_'Shit,' _Sakura thought desperatly as she cringed. She returned the favor by drawing blood with her kunai to show she wasn't messing around either, but he wasn't letting up at all and she couldn't see if she'd even caused him pain, it didn't sound like it. However, she knew all too well what stomach wounds could cause, he was in pain, but was obviously just dealing with it stubbornly.

_'Naruto, Sai, Yamato... Where are you guys?' _

She coughed, half choking. Her thoughts turned desperate, she wouldn't call out, but she thought of things like kicking him unfairly where it hurts the most. Although Itachi wouldn't have any of that. As soon as she made the move for it, weakly with her knee given the tiny space, Itachi only pressed his knee into her leg to stop it. Squirming slightly every now and then, trying for more air, she contemplated her chances of surviving if she just gave up on playing it safe and toppled the both of them over the edge. It would give her some room, at least. Alright-

"Don't even think about it," he warned. Like she would listen. She twisted, ignoring the scratches from his kunai, the pain in her chest and leg from where his knee was pressed painfully, and manuvered her kunai to somewhere that wasn't as much of a death bringer. She didn't know why, but absently assumed it must have been out of respect for Sasuke. She didn't want to take his revenge from him herself if she could avoid it.

"Oh, KAMI! Just kill her, yeah! Like we need her," Deidara, she recognized, yelled. His words didn't register though, because a second later her name was called, unfourtunately halting her jumping attempt as Itachi was quick to stop it anyway.

"SAKURA!" Naruto screamed, bounding up towards them like a rabid animal. Sai, followed close behind him. Yamato, was probably on his way, but he was the furthest off from them. Idly Sakura thought it might take him another eight minutes or so... _'Oh, crap.' _

Sakura's head had snapped over to Naruto's voice despite the kunai Itachi had stubbornly kept placed at her throat and her eyes had flown open. They widened in realization. _'No'. _

The kunai was swiftly twirled away from her, spinning off the end ring by his middle finger, the rest of his hand moved to grab her by the jaw and force her to finally look at his eyes. All the saw were ghostly sharingan invading her mind.

"No! Sakura! Fight him! Don't you give in, Sakura! Don't you dare!" Naruto cried as he clashed with Deidara.

Deidara laughed. "Hey, kid! Thanks for making our lives easier, yeah. Since the very second you called her name, you doomed her. There's not a chance in hell she can get out of that scary ass jutsu. Cudose to you, yeah."

"Deidara, you bastard! I'll kill you!" Naruto was seething.

"You said that last time, yeah." Deidara visibly rolled his eyes in an exasperated form.

Sai had engaged in a tough fight with Kisame, who was just playing around really. He thought very little of leaf ninja like this, and wasn't going to waste more energy than he had to to fight off these pests. His leg was killing him, but he never let on about it. All the more reason to conserve the energy.

Itachi and Sakura were locked in a staring contest. While Sakura's eyes were blank and glazed over, they did not close. _'Tch. You were so adamant about having them closed before and now you insist on keeping them open.'_ Itachi sighed internally with his thought.

Sakura wasn't limp either. Her arms had fallen to her sides, but aside from that she may as well have been rooted to the ground, she was so stiff. The Sharingan were breaking in through her defenses. Her thin layer of glassy chakra coating her eyes breaking away. That was the first step. To make him waste as much chakra as possible in trying to enter, before he actually did and he would. There was no way for Sakura to keep Sharingan out completely, but she could stall, wear it down and then beat it out with sheer will if she had to and she had two of those... Sakura hadn't perfected defusing Sharingan, so this was the best she could do. He'd immobolized her and she probably wouldn't be able to move without major difficulty, but she was awake.

Itachi thought he saw a smug look on the girls face, strained but it was there. Complete with a victorious smirk, however small. His Sharingan spun eroding the layer of chakra she had somehow protected her eyes with. This was getting far too annoying. He kicked in his Mangekyou Sharingan, enough was enough, but he was surprised internally at how it had taken another two minutes to break her.

Sakura took in a sharp breath, the entry hurt so much more when you fought it. She would have to make a note of that. However she was actually glad. He had used the mangekyou and was probably sufficiently low on chakra, or would be soon. It'd be easier to win out now. _'Please tell me you're ready?'_

**'Hell, yeah! I'll kick that emotionless look into next year! Forget that, the next Decade! No one invades our mind!' **

_'Um, he just sorta did. But yes, before you can argu, I get what you're saying. Payback. I agree. Now lets get him before _we_ run out of chakra.'_

_**Normal POV: but from Itachi's side. ( inside mangekyou)**_

_Itachi supressed a smirk. The kunoichi had obviously thought this out previously and planned ahead for such situations. Whatever her reasons were, he didn't care, but absently noted it must have been a precaution against his younger brother. He sighed shifting his attention back to the still girl infront of him, unmoving even in her mind. He had two options here, succumb to curiosity and see if she actually could 'kick him out' of her mind, or end it now where she wouldn't be able to will her way free. _

_As it so happened, he decided that since Deidara probably had a score to settle with the kyuubi child and Kisame was otherwise preoccupied, he may as well kill time. _

_Inside the black void he'd created with the mangekyou, he toyed with her mind. Dangling touchy subjects right in front of her, seeing how far he could use her own mind and past against her. He felt her discomfort, even while she hid it, he felt it. Her thoughts inside the mangekyou were easily shown to him, and it amused him that above all, right now what bothered her most was how intrusive he was being. Unlike most of his prey, she knew non of this was actually real, so it allowed for silly thoughts like that. Anyone else would be terrified. He was also irritated to learn she had another conscience of some sort. As of this moment he wasn't sure what it was capable of, other than mental back up for the Haruno girl. That, he concluded, was probably why she could stand up to him like this, and it annoyed him to a partial extent that this part of what seemed like a very quiet girl, was loud and obnoxious. Spouting insults every few seconds, which had no effect, but that didn't mean he wasn't bothered by the incessant talking. He cut the fooling around crap right there, simple memories weren't working, she was just focusing her thoughts elsewhere with her hands up at her temples and drawing strength from her inner mind. He'd try pain._

_Itachi advanced on the still standing kunoichi, not even blinking as he made a katana thrust through her abdomen. Blood spurt out through the other side where its sharp, angled tip protruded and she coughed the same warm liquid, her hands now coming to grip the blade, but failing to pull it out. She didn't scream, but she wasn't ignorant eaither, her face twisted with the pain. He pushed it in farther, the blood flow trickled along the blade and dripped down beneath them to meet an endless fall. The girl cringed again through the pain, visibly gritting her teeth._

_"Even if it isn't real, it feels as though it is. I have full control of your nerves, including the limbic system that measures pain. I can make it worse, but you already know that. You're going to lose, Haruno. It's your choice whether to do so in less anguish or not-"_

_"That's right," the kunoichi chocked out, attempting a growl, instead another spurt of blood followed the action. Itachi narrowed his eyes. _

_"It _is_ my choice. I won't back down just because it hurts. I just have to hold out a little longer,"_

_"Still relying on everyone else?" He questioned purposely, reading the path her thoughts were taking._

_She smirked, nearly defeated, but seemed to be holding onto one single truth. "That's what team mates are for and... besides," a cough broke her sentence and she gripped the katana firmly. " I'm not completely relient on others-"_

_He saw where her resolve was going and interrupted her, "You aren't strong enough to push me out on your own. Even with a second mind, for you, it's impossible."_

_"__**Yeah? Let's see just what exactly is impossible, asshole!**__" The girl's second mind bellowed and Itachi felt the girl mentally tell it to shut up, otherwise she seemed to ignore it slightly and continued without breaking, even with her 'inner's constant banter of complaints about being ignored. He even cought some of it: "__**Sakura, you've got to be kidding, 'shut up'? I want to tear his head off for kami's sake! You know you want the same, just let me take over."**_

**"No,"** _came Sakura's firm decision to her inner. _**"I just have to hang on for another two minutes. Cpt. Yamato will be here, I kept the timing, even in here where time hardly exists. He'll be here**.**"**_ Itachi ran over that thought of hers, he would have to end this all then before things got complicated. _

_She continued as if her internal debate had never taken place, "and you aren't strong enough to put me under. It's a stalemate-" he cut off her reply to him, twisting the blade and drawing more blood, causing her to gasp. She was purposely making him waste more chakra the longer he was in here. He knew that._

_"Oh?" He scoffed internally at being called evenly matched against this girl. They both knew full well that he was high above her in skill. No, he couldn't render her unconcious with just his mind, but that meant nothing at all as to who was stronger. She just happened to be stubbornly head-strong. "Hardly." _

_The blood dripping from the katana through her wound fell just as it had before, only this time it made a sound after a moment, as if it had landed in a puddle. Just that single drop made the atmosphere turn red and she felt as if she were drowning in her own blood. The color rose instantaneously, taking away her air supply and giving the kunoichi a drowning effect. In actuality, it was only Itachi pressing forward again with his forearm that was still holding her down firmly against the tree. At the moment though, the girl hardly knew that bit of truth and either way, her body was still suffocating. _

_Itachi withdrew his sword, this was taking too much chakra and he had to end it now. It seems her 'inner' as she liked to call it, had merged with her for the moment attempting to assist her. It was futile. He would be attacking from both the inside and the outside. Just to put her in her place and probably to ease his own ego, he would put her under and he would make it hurt. _

_"Give up," he offered as a last grace._

_The pink haired girl raised her gaze to glare up at him through her lashes defiantly, daring him to do his worst. "Never."_

_He gladly accepted the challenge and thrusted the blade straight through her chest, dead center. Her eyes widened in both reality and his twisted world. He knew because even though most of his attention was drawn in by the mangekyou, he was still vaguely aware of his actual surroundings. This prevented the ease of being attacked, although Deidara and Kisame were keeping a good enough handle on the brats. Now, as he tied her nerves to reality, he tricked her body into feeling the pain he'd created. _

_She stood stunned, mouth slightly open. She was done coughing awhile ago, but now blood fell from the corner. Itachi saw the same happen outside. Within the bloody world of the sharingan, she fell to her knees. Her face had gone blank and her eyes seemed even dull now. She tried pulling out the blade, and he let her. Watching as she still attempted to heal herself. It seems he's managed to make her believe the pain was real. In a way it was, she was bleeding internally. Her mind was unfocused, easy picking. _

_"Now. See how pointless that all was? And here I thought you were the smart one. Tch." _

_The girl glared weakly from the ground, while he stood towering above her with a passive expression. "Sleep tight." With that he faded from her view, coming back to reality. _

Itachi blinked slowly, the girl infront of him whom he still had his hold on was definitely unconscious, he'd made sure of it and her eyes were unresponsive, but she hadn't gone limp. Realization struck him. That damned inner of hers was willing her body to stay alert. Her hands had raised deafly to grip his arm, trying to pry it off her. He pressed again and it caused her to lose a breath she'd been holding. His eyes narrowed, her movements were much too slow in this weakened state and blood seaped from the edge of her mouth.

The girl was determined to stay somewhat awake and not willing to leave herself open to be killed. Her mind was still locked inside the mangekyou and it wouldn't wear off for awhile, didn't she know she was done for? Sighing he supposed she did, but just refused to give up. He glanced at the kyuubi child confirming she picked it up from him most likely.

Itachi absently put a hand to his temple and began to rub, thinking of how annoying this group was, but apparently the kunoichi's capture was worth the hassel.

Finally he decided it was time to finish this, it was dragging on longer than he cared for. He sheathed his kunai and reached around behind the girls neck, pinching a nerve. Her eyes came to life for a moment before they slackened and her head lulled forward. His arm, braced against her, was all that kept her body from slumping over and falling down the same destrucive path the rest of the large branch had earlier. Releasing his hold of her there, he moved to girp her shoulders, her pink hair falling with gravity and brushing against his cloak. A sudden explosion jostled them and he adjusted his footing, still grasping her shoulders her limp body being fully supported against him now. He took no notice of it, "Deidara."

Deidara looked at him from atop his massive bird, absently throwing a bundle of tiny ones over his shoulder and down onto several angry, orange kyuubi kids. They blew up in a puff of white smoke. "Whadya want, yeah?" He was obviously having fun with this, since at present he wasn't glaring at Itachi, but smirking.

Itachi wisely waited for the noise from the explosion to subside before speaking. It'd be a waste of breath to repeat. "We're going. Now."

Deidara didn't waste any time in rearraging his face to show his dis-contempt and Itachi read his lips when he muttered; "Already? Damn you, Uchiha, you're always spoiling my fun, yeah."

Itachi gave him a strong glare, saying all he needed to say. Including making Deidara realize he'd been found out. Itachi would never admit it, but it was always fun for him to freak out Deidara. Ever since he caught him and took him to Akatsuki, the boy hated him and rightfully he should, but he was always edgy around Itachi. It amused him to some extent. Like now, Itachi had a ghost of a smile hidden behind the high collar of the Akatsuki cloak he wore, his eyes however conveyed a different message. 'Hurry your ass up.' Deidara turned away from Itachi and the unconscious girl, using the distraction of the leaf brats as an excuse to turn to do so.

"Give me a second, alright, yeah?"

"Hn," Itachi grunted back, aknowledging that he'd heard him. In the mean time, instead of balancing on a hazardous tree branch so close to the fight, he secured his hold on the girl by her waist, jumping back a distance and onto another tree. He didn't have the chakra to make his own escape separate from theirs. Deidara was their convenient escape plan, no one in their current party was that great at transportation jutsu's, so it was a good thing to have him, even if there was a possibility of him killing the girl while she slept. Itachi looked down at her, maybe he wouldn't until she healed Sasori at least, who knew.

"Kisame."

Kisame hurdled back in a swift jump avoiding a massive ink lion, conveniently passing Itachi the moment he blocked it off. "Yeah, yeah, I'll be right there! The kid got ink on Samehade, you know how_ long _it takes to bandage it up again? Or clean it even?" He leaped off again towards the dark haired brat Itachi believed to be in the ANBU root, Sai, apparently.

"Just hurry up." Kisame was apprently on a rampage of some kind, bloody fool. Or was it the boy who was the fool?

Instinct sprang through Itachi as his body moved of it's own accord, seeming to effortlessly dodge a barrage of explosive kunai thrown at him. In the time it would take for Itachi to cast a genjutsu, he had quickly moved Sakura onto his back and dropped down to a lower branch, in mid-air, he did the hand signs for a fireball jutsu and caught the attacker from below easily. The ash cleared to reveal a charred tree stump that poofed away as it fell.

"Uchiha, Itachi," came a familiar voice. Itachi's gaze slid calmly to meet a white haired jounins.

"Hatake, Kakashi."

Itachi was mildly surprised. Inside the Haruno girl's mind, he'd read that Hatake had been taken away by ANBU back to the Leaf for treatment. His summon's dog, Pakkun, had stayed behind for a short time with them in his stead. Then it clicked.

"Reverse Summoning," he stated in a drawl. The two deadly nin's stared off, calculating tactics, neither moved and Itachi was piggy backing an unconscious Sakura on his back.

**Normal POV(all sides): **

Kakashi wouldn't be able to do anything as long as Sakura was in direct danger. In fact, she was probably in more than direct danger. She's already sunk.

"Huh, what? Kakashi-sensei, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be in the hospital," Naruto was the first to question this, since Yamato was apparently in the know -comming up to stand a fair distance from Kakashi- and Sai didn't show any sign of being surprised either, but that was just Sai.

Naruto pinned another cloud of tiny explosive birds to a tree with a kunai net, quickly rearranging his priorities for the moment. Deidara was still trying to find a way to get the brat off his back so they could leave already, and Naruto was actually not making it so easy.

Yamato was the one to answer him, after a nod from Kakashi, he went to help Naruto against the blonde artist. As if Deidara didn't have enough problems, he rolled his eyes in frustration.

"Reverse summoning, Naruto, is just as it sounds. Pakkun wasn't that far off when Sakura's call came through the radio and sensed Kakashi to be...able. Pakkun summoned Kakashi here, instead of the other way around, which is usually the way it works. I met up with him on the way and briefed him."

"Ohhh... So it's just the reverse." Naruto fisted his hand and smacked it into his palm in a comprehensive gesture.

"Hence the name... Yes," Yamato deadpanned, raining on Naruto's short lived moment of great intelligence. Which honestly wouldn't have been that great, but after being shot down in the last lecture/lesson, he'd take anything.

Naruto kept his mouth shut this time and shrugged it off. He had to keep his focus on the constant rain of bombs hitting them.

Sai was still at it with Kisame, both showing signs of fatigue and even with Kisame's fractured leg, he still looked like he was winning.

"Kisame," Itachi needed to get them away quickly, they were pressed for time considering Sasori's condition and the travel distance alone would take little over a day. They couldn't waste anymore time playing with leaf ninja, they had to go. "Deidara and I will take the kunoichi now. Keep them off our tail and catch up with us." Next, Itachi looked pointedly at Deidara, clearly burning in the words _"Hurry up," _ through his gaze.

Deidara shivered involuntarily and shook his head as if relieving himself of the feeling. "Keep your freaking pants on, Uchiha-san. I've got it covered," and with that Deidara turned away from Itachi and back to Naruto. Still highly perched atop his clay bird. Naruto and Yamato stood below and Deidara smirked as he threw over a few decent sized explosive birds and spiders. The clay birds exploded on contact with the ground and created enough of a distraction for the spiders to leap through the smoke, startling the two shinobi and forcing them to retreat backwards to avoid the coming clay spiders.

His smirk widened as he made his single hand sign, "KATSU!"

Naruto leaped back, avoiding the jumping spiders and coming into contact with a tree on the edge of the path. Only, it was moving...? "Wait, how the heck do trees move?" He turned his head to face the wriggling movement that had him suddenly wary. His face twisted to show his shock and his eyes widened as they landed on the bundle of explosives he'd pinned to a tree a few minutes ago with a net. _'He didn't set them off right away back then!' _

"Kuso! Cpt. Yamato, Loo-"

"KATSU!"

**(A/N): **Ooh, hoo...cliff hanger... XD I am actually so sorry. Over a month late, I know. Two since my last update, more I think. IM SORRY FREAKING WRITERS BLOCK.

But you know what? When you have a plot in mind that you know some people may be upset with, you get scared of how to write it. So I saved the dreaded ...*cough* not gonna say, but I saved that horrible piece of the story for the next chapter. I was going to put it here, but this was already too long, and I needed to get my ass in gear and update. *sigh* So if you read into the story enough, you might just figure out whats going to happen, if you do, kudose to you. I feel sad... OH and please avoid the obvious train of thought, ie: ...actually never mind ^_^ Think what you will, it's fun to surprise people, XP ANYway, please don't kill me, and be appreciative if only a little. I finished the rest of this at work... ... That's how much you all mean to me... Lmao. Anyway, I'll start the next one now, and a HUGE SORRY TO **OKAMI X KO X BITES**... I think there are X's in it . oh well YOU NKOW WHO YOU ARE, anyway, Sorry I haven't messaged you, things have been super hectic in short, I'll message you when I've got time this weekend. Thank you and Good Day :P


	5. Chapter 5  Won't be Catching up

(A/N):** WARNING: THERE WILL BE BLOOD. RATED T FOR A REASON**

So... how are you? I honestly have nothing important to say other than that I'm sorry again. I didn't start this right away like I said I would. I'm getting lazy. . I had camp and real life and just started grade 11. It would take an entirely too long of a time to explain everything, but I hope I can be forgiven. Right, so now that we are hopefully on the same page; I will not keep you waiting. ...Itachi is giving me that blank stare of his... Not exactly all too pleasant, but hey; at least he's cute. - ON with the show!

**Disclaimer:** I don't owwwns it, all rights to characters from the Canon belong to Masashi Kishimoto, the great and all powerful GAWD.

Pein: I am GOD.

Soph: Get down off your horse, Pein. Kishi comes pretty damn close to the actual God, ish. I'm Christian after all. (Greek Orthodox-WHICH, BY THE WAY: Greece WON today(it's not today anymore... :( ) in Soccer against Nigeria!-dunno how to spell it, meh whatevs- 2 to 1! SHANNARO!){Forgive the minor outburst, lol :P} **(So old but I kept it anyways. I wrote most of this chappy awhile ago... but got stuck at the fight scene :3 Sowwy's)**

Pein: *shrugs and walks off, refusing to argue something that is in his perspective, utterly pointless.*

Soph: That's right, now I'll write..

Hidan: *Drops his scythe to his side, grumbling*

Soph: Um, yeah. What was that about? *wondering if I was being snuck up on, or about to be...*

Hidan: Just shut up and write! Honestly, you women piss me the hell off every single time.

Soph: Well I'm SORRY, I'm bored and can't think. Genius takes time.

Hidan: Some genius if it takes freaking thunder bolts to give you ideas.

Soph: HEY-!

Itachi: You're stalling. *Glare..*

Soph: *Sheepish smile* Yes. Yes, I am. You know me so well.

Itachi: Write. Now.

Soph: *Mock Salute* Hai, Shishou!

Hidan: And for the record, Jashin is the only God and Religion!

All: *Ignore profusely*

STORY TIME-

**Normal POV: **

Dust and chips of wood scattered quickly in all directions, causing the terrain to suddenly change shape and general vision to be obscured. There'd been a dull thump that the blonde's expert ears picked up, but he wondered why it sounded dulled. He was sure the blast had caught both him and Yamato. Maybe even Sai, he wasn't sure.

His arms were covering the top of his head, and he could still feel small pieces of tree bark falling down on him. When Naruto went to move them back down to his sides, he winced and could only think morbidly that he hadn't gotten off scott free after all. He listened intently before opening his eyes to a dusty darkness, the dust still somehow managing to find it's way into his eyes. _Why was it so dark already? The sun had only just begun to go down, unless... Oh my Kami-sama! I've gone blind! _Naruto began to look around frantically, blinking all the while, obviously panicking.

"Cpt. Yamato-!" Naruto began to call out to his creepy eyed(at times) jounin captain until his outstretched hand thumped into something solid within the dark. It took him a moment, but Naruto suddenly understood that Yamato had shielded him from most of the blast with his wood-style jutsu. Sure enough, a moment later the protective jutsu was dropped as it receded into the ground. Cpt. Yamato stood next to him with a grim look on his face, halting Naruto from thanking him. Naruto's expression fell, his complexion paled, and his eyes slowly slid to stare wide eyed through the clearing smoke at the retreating backs of two Akatsuki atop a large clay bird. His eyes zeroed in on the limp head of pink hair beneath Itachi's arm.

The blonde began to feel hot pin pricks in the corners of his eyes as they narrowed along with his clenching jaw. His fists balled themselves tighly, and without out a seconds hesitation, Naruto bolted. Running as fast as his legs could take him after the ever distant growing bird. "SAKURA-CHAAAN!" Naruto yelled at the top of his lungs

There was no time for second guessing himself, every second he wasted resulted in Sakura-chan getting further away, they all knew that, so no one stopped him. Not Sai, not Kakashi, not even Yamato. The Akatuski had just made this all too personal now, the three elite shinobi all either stood shocked or crouched on the ready. They'd all but forgotten Kisame until the large blue nukenin came rocketing in from the side and into Naruto's path, slamming down the Samehade.

Naruto halted just in time, leaping backwards and raising his arms to shield his eyes from the dirt the attack kicked up. More dust. He was beginning to despise dust. Still in the air he directed chakra to pull himself to a tree only to kick off with a swift speed.

Kakashi and Yamato quickly blocked Kisame from following the raging boy, Sai already beginning to draw up various ink creatures. "Bring the hag back, dickless!" Sai attempted an encouraging call. And instead of Naruto getting angry, it actually did make him all the more determined to bring her back.

"Naruto!" Kakashi called loudly. "We've got Hoshigaki! Get Sakura!" As he finished, Kakashi's Sharingan shifted to Mangekyo, ready for anything the blue shinobi dished out. "Yamato!"

"Right!" Yamato built sky daringly high walls, caging in them all in along with Kisame to prevent him from following Naruto and the rest of Akatsuki, or simply getting away from them. Their arena was set, and Naruto was out of sight.

"Well, this might be annoying," Kisame mused to himself with a snear on his face. Samehade rested heavily on his shoulder, opposite to his injured leg, unbeknownst to the Konoha shinobi however. Kisame's snear turned menacing and smirkish. "But I bet I can make it all worth while. I'm going to have fun with this."

Yamato struck first, sending multiple pillars of wood speeding towards Kisame, threatening to impale him. While Sai drew up several ink beasts and sent them running across the wood, roaring together as a stampede.

Thinking quick, Kisame created four water clones and jumped up onto the wooden pillars the moment they would have gone straight through him. He and his clones ran through the entanglement of wood, slicing down any ink creatures that got in his way. The sooner he got to the jutsu caster, the sooner he could end this.

Bit's of wood flew everywhere as he hacked mercilessly through both the ink beasts and wood. Splattering even more unwanted ink on his Samehade. Kisame growled, "You'll pay for that, brat!" The moment the words were out, he rounded on a large ink lion, carrying Sai on it's back.

Short sword drawn, Sai lept from his mount and side stepped a crushing blow that most likely would have been his head, followed by the rest of his body straight down the middle. Sai almost shuddered at the realization, but otherwise, wasn't even breaking a sweat. Making the seal, he evened the plainfield with a few ink clones of his own. They spread out immediately, each pairing up with a water clone of Kisame's.

"Brat!" Kisame's head swiveled around to find Sai standing behind him. Kisame lashed out with his first instincts, spinning to aim a backwards kick, his leg collided with the raised and guarded arm of Sai. He flinched at the pain his broken leg caused him that moment on impact. It didn't go unnoticed by Sai's keen and infuriatingly emotionless gaze.

"Kakashi-sama!" Sai called up to Kakashi who'd been perched atop one of the high walls of Yamato's self created arena. Looking for the slightest weekness with his piercing Sharingan. He'd long since found the real one, hence Sai's sudden movement to Kisame.

"Got it," Kakashi grunted out as he'd also seen it around six seconds faster than Sai did.

Kisame cursed under his breath at the realization of his injury being discovered and now exploited. They knew which one of him was real now. "Why do you Konoha-nin always have to be so nosy!"

"Shinobi are trained with a keen eye, Kisame," Kakashi drawled. "Shinobi were also trained to hide their weaknesses because of that. Your loss, Hoshigaki. Stupidity is not overlooked. Especially with the Sharingan."

"Look's like you need to do a bit more homework, fish-face. I'd lend you a book of mine on reducing Ignorance, but then again, I don't think I like you very much." Sai smiled falsely up at Kisame.

"What'd you just call me? BRAT! I'll enjoy feeding you to Samehade." No one really understood the double meaning in his words... Until Kakashi attacked. Kisame slowly registered the high pitched chirping of birds.

"CHIDORI!" He'd lept down while Sai distracted Kisame, moving quick as the noise produced by the jutsu wouldn't give him much advantage in his surprise attack. Kisame quickly sliced Sai in half, only to curse in finding out that it was a clone made of more disgusting ink. Ignoring it, he used the momentum to come around just in time to guard with Samehade infront of him as Kakashi's Chidori.

A bright light sparked through out their make-shift arena, temporaily blinding Yamato and Sai. Yamato had pasued in his attacks to watch and see if Kakashi was successful.

Kakashi's eyes widened in understanding. Slowly, the glowing electricity faded unnaturally from his hand. Appearing as though the sword were eating his chakra. And with Kakashi's Sharingan, the fear was confirmed.

"Mhmm, tasty. Hatake Kakashi, Samehade is really going to enjoy eating up your chakra especially. You should really have done more homework on me and my sword here." The blue S-class nuke-nin stated casually, patting his sword. "Ignorance and stupidity are not over looked in the shinobi world afterall, ne?" He smirked evily as he mock-quoted Kakashi's earlier reprimandment. On a role he started to do the same for the ink brat. "I'd lend you a book on solving that problem for you, but unfourtunately-"

"What? Unfoutunately you don't read?" Sai mocked and Kisame rolled his eyes.

"I've had just about enough of you!" He shouted and pushed Kakashi backwards. Kakashi gladly lept away.

"Oh, and you've just up and forgotten about me? I'm hurt," Yamato slammed his hands together tightly, in the same moment the pillars of twisting wood launched for Kisame quicker than he could think. They wrapped around his frame securely, immobolizing his movement. Smaller and finer pieces snaked their way towards his hands and fingers to restrict jutsu.

Kisame noticed and right away made a single handsign. His almost always present smirk in place as he disolved into a human shapped water blob. A second later it released it's hold on the form and splashed to the ground.

"Kakashi-sama! Cpt. Yamato!" Sai cautioned. They both looked around them and saw that the other four water clones had done the same thing, only with a twist. Their arena was conveniently acting like a wooden aquarium as Kisame must have used a water jutsu to begin filling up the area. It was all almost instant, the water levels were quickly rising, as the turf of the land shifted to benefit Kisame. The three Konoha shinobi easily stood atop the water, but it wasn't necessarily a good thing. They were sitting ducks and they knew it. Then again, Yamato did use water style, and Kakashi had a few tricks so they weren't totally helpless. Even Sai was sure he could find some use for his ink.

The water finally stilled and all was silent. Kakashi kept his eyes peeled very closely before deciding on a tactic.

"Sai, send in some water snakes. Look for him." Sai nodded and complied, although he was planning a special twist for later when the time was right. His ink would be helpfull.

The snakes entered the water in droves, Kakashi hadn't expected Sai to send that many in, but catching Sai's eye, he understood that he was planning something.

The three of them stood atop the water in various crouching positions. It had only been around another two minutes before Kisame surfaced to stand roughly 20 meters infront of them.

"Well would you look at that; the tables have turned..." The nuke-nin grinned, shouldering his Samahade.

Yamato was beginning to perform a water jutsu, but Kakashi held him back. "No. That's what he wants, and not only won't it affect him that much, but you'll lose focus concerning your wood style." Kakashi didn't dare look away from Kisame as he spoke to Yamato. The slightest distraction and that could be it for them. "Yamato, believe me when I say we'll need your wood style for later, don't lose focus. That's a clone." Kakashi knew what they saw infront of them was a mere water clone, easily by just reading his chakra.

Yamato wanted to scoff at Kakashi and mock his words by countering with saying something like he was the one more likely to lose focus. But the ANBU knew better than to argue, now wasn't the time.

"You twerps take _way _too _long_! Haaa!" Kisame lost his patience right then and went straight for Kakashi; the largest threat. The silver haired jounin ducked down and lunged forward from his crouch to land a powerful punch in Kisame's gut. Said shinobi sputtered water out from his mouth, having the wind knocked from his lungs, before bursting into a body of water and melding back into their surroundings. Kakashi almost immediately flash-stepped to nowhere the other two could see, following a chakra signature. In an unspoken understanding, Sai and Yamato jumped off the waters surface and surveyed their surroundings.

Kakashi appeared to a spot somewhere behind where Sai would have been, and caught another surfacing clone from behind. It was going after Sai that time. He dismembered the clone with one clean swipe of his leg before leaping back. Avoiding a sudden torrent of rising water that errupted from where he'd just been standing. If Kakashi didn't possess the Sharingan, he was sure he'd have been caught in that.

He got a sudden idea in how they could force the real nuke-nin to appear, and didn't hesitate to try it out. After all, what'd they have to lose at this point?

"The _great_ Hoshigaki Kisame, hiding behind water clones and his precious water. Who would have thought?"

"Are you certain, Kakashi-sama, that we should make him angrier than he already could be?" Sai asked cluelessly as both he and Yamato landed back on the water. Kakashi sent him a look that both shut him up and hopefully conveyed what he was planning. Thankfully, Sai smiled one of _those_ smiled and nodded, shutting up.

"Is this how you came to be one of the greatest Seven Swordsmen of The Mist? By playing games of hide and go seek, and hidding like some cowardly child 'till you find an opening? I never would have pegged you, of all people, as a coward, Kisame. Then again, some people, I find, surprise you to no end. The mere concept of your cowardice is astounding. What would your fellow Swordsmen say?" The white haired jounin taunted the nuke-nin relentlessly. If there was anything Kakashi knew, it was that most men tended to have huge pride and ego issues.

Kisame frowned below the water, floating just below his large pillar of still swirling water. And the worst part of it was, was that he knew what the copy-nin was trying to do. Worse still was that it was working. He couldn't just hide and lie in wait for them. First of all it wasn't his style, he was just being extra cautious, also unlike him, but considering his leg... He shook his head, pride getting a hold of him. He couldn't sit there and listen to him being called a coward, it was degrading.

Kisame made the hand seals quick as ripping water in a fast moving tide. The pilar above him exploaded, the huge water dropplets rocketing back down to the water. Finishing the hand seals, they turned solid and icy. _'Sky rain: Solidify and Pierce', _he thought smugly.

Above, the three Konoha shinobi darted around, avoided the impending impalement of their limbs should they dare to stay still. Kakashi easily maneuvered his Kunai to deflect many of them, but found that once he'd make contact with the icy droplets, they would liquify and burn his skin. Like dry ice. He made a note to avoid that...

Sai managed enough non-contact what-so-ever, having a few ink beasts take the hits for him and drawing them up again as quick as they dissolved. All the while the ink that bled from his creatures went unnoticed as it contaminated to water around them, _slowly_. Sai smirked, thinking; '_Patience, and then he'll be done for'_

Yamato had enough on his hands simply trying to dodge everything, his wood helped very little as he still seemed to be taking hits. The dry ice got him whenever he broke their solid from, and whenever he missed, they made small and deep scratches. He grimaced thinking he'd need Sakura soon. _Sakura._ The thought renewed his efforts, and he trugged on.

Suddenly, a giant whirlpool formed below them, and Sai and Yamato lept away. The storm of dry ice ending, only to give birth to a wide and deadly swirl of engulfing water. Kakashi had been just about to do the same as his comrades, but something grasped his ankle, holding him down.

"Now," The blue nin said. "What was that about my being a coward?" He gave an evil grin before a clone appeared next to him, morphing into a large shark and bitting down on Kakashi's other ankle. He cried out in shock, barely noticing how they had already begun to follow the fast swirling motion of the whirlpool. '_This is bad', _he thought desparately.

"Down we go, copy-nin!" Kisame announced with a wicked grin, and pulled said copy-nin down below. Both Yamato and Sai cried out for Kakashi, but neither could even get close to the whirlpool without either A): Being sucked down themselves, or B): Running into one of Kisame's wonderfully dangerous sharks that he never seemed to run out of. Sai tried sending his ink creatures after him, but the sharks crunched them down. Much the same thing happened when Yamato tried with his wood jutsu, which in many places now floated in tiny slivers. It was hard enough for Sai to keep his ink jutsu maintained without the water making it run, and turn useless. It required a constant stream of chakra, one that was wearing him dangerously thin.

Kakashi gritted his teeth, and reached in his back kunai pouch for his mini water breather and poped it into his mouth. Out of his own pride he managed between breaths, "And what was that about 'waiting till you found an opening'? Coward."

Turns out, he should have taken Sai's advice right then, but in his defense, the enemy had much the same thing planned out in the end for him anyway. Why not have a little fun while he was at it? Kakashi had time to inwardly sigh at his morbid sense of humour. He remembered picking it up from Sakura awhile back. And just like that, even after he suffered a shark's head ramming into his abdomen, he sucked it up and fought with all he had. He had to give Naruto a good enough chance to get Sakura before it was too late. Kakashi threw a kunai that zipped through the water and landed in Kisame's hand, successfully freeing him from the blue shark-nin's hold. Kisame jerked back through the water, clutching at his injured hand. The silver haired jounin ignored him, trying to get back to the surface, he swam with all he had, even adding some of his chakra to help him rise.

The down swirling current of the whirlpool just wouldn't allow him though. And even though he'd found means of breathing while underwater, it didn't mean he wasn't still uncomfortable.

The copy-nin turned around to face his opponant, readying his Water Dragon Vortex jutsu, seeing as Kisame had more sharks coming after him. The massive water dragon disrupted the whirlpool's current enough for Kakashi to regain his bearings and noticing Kisame's short lapse in balance, made a snap decision. He was running low on chakra and would need to end this quickly. But the mere idea of defeating the Hoshigaki Kisame at all would be insane, if they weren't planning on being sneaky about it. Kakashi was well aware of what Sai had prepaired the field for and now, before it was too late, decided he should act on it.

The original captain of team 7 rose from the water briefly, shouting a simple order to their young root member. "NOW SAI!" The black haired boy nodded, forming a single handsign, and the water went black. Polluted with the ink of the snakes Sai had sent in, along with every other ink creature that had been destroyed in the duration of this battle.

Kakashi dove back down, his Sharingan even having trouble in the darkness of the water, so he followed Kisame's chakra signature, and found him right where he'd left him. Little to no time at all had passed since Kakashi's water dragon vortex, and Kisame only now seemed to be coming back from the jutsu. And... he couldn't see. Kakashi figured he was wide open to attack him. But then, as if Kisame could read his thoughts, shouted.

"Fool! I don't need to see you. _Here_, I can _smell_ you!" As if to prove his point, Kisame took in a massive breathe in, actually having gills to do so, and gagged. Clutching his throat, he croaked, "Wh-what'd you _**DO**__**TO ME?**_"

Kakashi didn't waste his breath in answering just then, instead hurling his hands forward, already finished with a string of hand seals. "Blizard Chidori!" Kisame, hindered by his lack of vision, smell and relative shock, took the hit. Square in the chest, and the oddest thing was... That it didn't hurt as much as it should have.

He was beginning to feel numb, and cold and found it hard to move at all. There was a brief moment, below in still black water, that he felt overheated. Jolted alive with heat until that heat led to a seeping cold where he was now. He was no fool, and understood what they'd done without being told now. All the same, he asked again, not willing to believe his own logical conclusion. "What... did you.. -do, Kakashi?" His voice hoarse and choaked.

This time Kakashi answered him, in the form of a short Mangekyou. Kisame was shown the scene in which Sai's various ink creations were destroyed, leaving the ink to seep in and pollute Kisame's water like territory and snap shots of how every breath he took in... he would also take in this ink. The snakes had been created with a leathal poison, and spread easily in the terrain Kisame himself had provided. That very poison worked it's way through the nuke-nin's lungs and to his bloodstream, spreading entirely and remaining concealed. To accomplish this, and remain unnoticed, Sai had canceled his jutsu, releasing any chakra it carried, but poison was not chakra and it along with the ink, stayed behind to fester inside him. It had only been up to Kakashi after that, to speed up the poison's progress with the heated jolts from his Chidori, ultimately quickening it's spread. The copy-nin had also gone through the trouble of adding extra chakra to freeze the original lightning style jutsu, causing the poison filled bloodstream to slow, until soon when it would freeze completely, reach his heart, and Kisame would die.

In a last effort, Kakashi had struck Kisame's chest, where the greatest heat eminated from, to keep his heart intact for some questions he wanted answered. Given the Akatsuki's physical state, he'd only have time for one. "Where are they taking Sakura?" He had to assume worst case senario, where Naruto failed to retrieve her. This way, they would at least have a lead. But no.

Kisame coughed up blood, laughing. "You think I'm seriously going to fill you in, copy-nin?" He broke the genjutsu, causing Kakashi's hardened gaze to widen as the blue shinobi raised his massive chakra eating sword, ready to hack him in two. Kakashi intinctively pushed his still Blizard Chidori activated arm forward, his fist finally protruding through Kisame's back.

"AGH!" More blood. The red mixed with the black ink in the water, which still hadn't cleared. Kakashi had to hurry, before he too was poisoned. His rebreather would only take in what was around him, and what was around him was _not good._

"Tell me now, and I'll end it now," he commanded sternly. Kisame actually lowered his head to meet his eyes then, and smiled. As if he'd won. Suddenly, he did something Kakashi would never have expected of him. Kisame dropped his Samehade, though it still hovered in the water beside him, to form a hand seal very slowly. Kakashi could feel how low the S-class criminal was on chakra and was not worried, especially now that his accursed sword was out of his grasp.

However, the seal he formed, transformed his sword into a shark. His sword had chakra, he did not. And he could not use chakra as the flow of his blood along with his chakra was slowly freezing over. But, Kakashi realized, his sword could do what he couldn't and as the shark sped toward them, Kakashi made a single hand seal with one hand to make a clone to protect him. Much to his astonishment, the shark didn't even flinch at whatever the clone came at it with. Infact, it carried on straight through the clone, destroying it and still remaining on coarse. Kakashi's heart thumped once and the shark had closed in, it was over...

For Kisame. The shark never intended to strike the jonin, instead it's goal was to tear off that limb in it's mouth: Kisame's left arm. Kisame cringed in on himself in obvious pain, but didn't look at all surprised. He smirked up at the jonin, "Screw you, Hatake."

With his still intact arm, he drew back for a punch, but Kakashi, knowing he'd get nothing from him, intensified his Chidori and Kisame went still. The blue man's blood, entirely frozen now, stopped. None escaped even the large wound from where Kakashi was now drawing back his arm. Rather than float to the surface, Kisame sunk, heavy with ice in his bones a smirk on his dying face. "Sorry, Itachi san..." he whispered to himself. "I... Won't be catching up with...-you." A small thin stream of bubbles escaped the Akatsuki's mouth, and he closed his eyes in rye thought. To have been killed by three leaf ninja, how degrading.

Kakashi looked down at Kisame as he was becoming increasingly more difficult to spot in the dark ink stained water, until rising back to the surface. He climbed out and knelt on one knee on the water, catching his breath. He felt as though he himself might die with all the injuries he'd sustained and the chakra he'd used up. Yamato came to his side immediately, helping him up. "Where is Sai, Yamato?"

"He went after some shark that bolted out from the water and headed off in Naruto's direction. He escaped, didn't he?"

Kakashi shook his head. "No. Hoshigaki is finished. That was his sword..." His mind sifted through idea's of why his sword would have taken it's master's arm and left. His thoughts were interrupted as Yamato suggested they follow. Kakashi only agreed, thinking as long as they avoided fighting. He didn't think they'd get lucky again, and Kakashi was ready to collapse. He reasoned they should at least retrieve Naruto. Before they went, Yamato created a large tree using wood style, to suck up the water around them. Once gone, he dispelled the walls and beneath the newly overgrown tree lay Kisame. Entangled in the heavy roots. In doing this, it made it simpler for the ANBU to collect the body once they arrived.

So they set off, catching up with Sai quickly, but the shark, or rather the sword, was out of sight. "Our priority, is finding Naruto. We've all exhausted our chakra, it wouldn't be wise to continue like this." No one argued with him, understanding that trying to get Sakura back from two Akatsuki who had barely fought at all so far would be suicide. Beating Kisame with what he had, combined with the other two was a miracle in and of itself.

"GET BACK HERE!" the teenaged boy growled angrily. His eyes shapened into slits, were still somehow blue with how demonic his voice sounded. He'd been throwing clone after clone at them, all of which either never reached or were blown away by Deidara's bombs. And the thing that pissed him off the most, was that Itachi hadn't even lifted a finger the whole time this was happening. He just kept staring straight as if he weren't even there, and still holding Sakura under his left arm. Naruto had had enough, "Haaaaa!" and conjured a few clones to use as step ladders from the trees higher and higher until it brought him close enough to the giant clay bird. He couldn't risk a Rasengan, with Sakura so close, but instead charged full on with his fists. He dodged all of the pesky bombs Deidara whipped at him with the help of his clones, but that was when his streak ended.

Itachi dropped Sakura down infront of him carelessly to turn around and glare at him, as if he were a fly on a wall. Naruto hadn't expected it and was ultimately frozen in Itachi's crimson gaze. He lost all awareness and fell into the world of darkness that was Mangekyou, only black surrounded him. It was all Itachi wanted him to see. All he needed him to in order for the raging blonde to simply stop in the real world and soar down with gravity past his clones in unconciousness. His clones poofed away from the lack of needed concentration and he fell past the tree line, into the forest. Foliage flew up from the impact. Itachi turned back around.

"That's what you freaking get, yeah! Eat tree bark, dumbass!" Deidara's outburst was followed by him taking out another bomb to finish the job, but Itachi held up a hand.

"Leave him," he ordered tonelessly.

"But Itachi-san, it's so perfect! We can take them both now!"

"Another day, Deidara," he glanced back at his blonde temporary partner, effectively silencing him. He hadn't missed his glare being returned however, knowing the art lover hated him. Of course he could care less, but he enjoyed the power it gave him over the loud blonde. It was silent for a few minutes, and nothing was said. Oddly enough, however, Itachi glanced back behind them, to the direction from which they had come, sensing something unnerving. He narrowed his eyes, almost hearing a sort of whisper and familiar chuckle carried in the wind. The Akatsuki ring on his hand felt suddenly heavier, more noticeable. The feeling was not a good one, and it made him think.

"Oi, where do you think Kisame-san is, yeah? Should have been here by now..." Deidara grumbled from infront of him. Itachi didn't answer.

**(A/N): **Yo... Sowwyyyy. :3 But I hope this made up for it. I have new inspiration some how or another, and with the holiday break coming up, I can hopefully promise another chapter within that time. Maybe even for Christmas day... Sooner even ;)

So the reason why it took me so long to get this out... aside from school and RL and junk... was because I had to kill Kisame. I HAD TO. It's apart of the plot okay. I'm sorry. I really like Kisame, but without meaning to... I had set him up as ther easiest person to kill off. I'd rather have killed off Kakuzu, but I didn't think of it until like... today. I got reviews saying how much they liked Kisame... and how cool he was, and I totally agree. So killing him was extremely hard, and because it needed to happen for the story... I had it in my mind to make his death fight epic. Like SUPER EPIC. Because he's supposed to be some crazy ass power house. BUT ONLY BECAUSE OF HIS SWORD. And so I tried playing on that.. hopefully I won't be killed in my sleep. I liked him too... maybe I'll cheat... and find a way to "fix" it. But don't count on it... because reviving characters too many times is rediculous, you have to admit. SOMEBODY HAS TO DIE . And Kisame specifically gives me more plot angles. I'm seriously almost making this fic up as I go along. XD

I won't ask for reviews, but if you liked it, at least give me a thumbs up or something, so I know I'm on some kind of good track. And the more inspiration I have, the faster I update.

**BuriedXHeart**


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